
© Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. British Official Photo. 

JERUSALEM DELIVERED 
On December 11, 1917, the Holy City was entered by the British forces. Fol- 
lowing the custom of the Crusaders, General Allenby, commander of the British and 
Allied forces, made his entry, with his staff and Allied officers, through the Jaffa Gate, 
on foot. 



COMPLETE EDITION 



HISTORY OF THE 

WORLD WAR 

An Authentic Narrative of 
The World's Greatest War 

, -.> * 
By FRANCIS A. jMARCH, Ph.D. 

In Collaboration with 
RICHARD J. BEAMISH 

Special War Correspondent 
and Military Analyst 



With an Introduction 

By GENERAL PEYTON C. MARCH 

Chief of Staff of the United States Army 



With Exclusive Photographs by 
JAMES H. HARE and DONALD THOMPSON 

World-Famed War Photographers 
and with Reproductions from the Official Photo- 
graphs of the United States, Canadian, British, 

French and Italian Governments 



MCMXIX 

LESLIE-JUDGE COMPANY 

New York 



fU 



11 

49 



ir» 



i J 




Copyright, 1918 
Francis A. March 

. This history is an original work and is fully 
protected by the copyright laws, including the 
right of translation. All persons are warned 
against reproducing the text in whole or in 
part without the permission of the publishers. 



>>. CONTENTS 



I" 



VOLUME V 



Chapter I. Redemption of the Holy paob 
Land 

A Long Campaign Progressing Through Hardships to Glory 
— General Allenby Enters Jerusalem on Foot — Turkish 
Army Crushed in Palestine — Battle of Armageddon . . 1 

Chapter II. Transportation Problems 

Government Ownership of Railroads, Telegraphs, Tele- 
phones — Getting the Men from Training Camps to the 
Battle Fronts — From Texas to Toul — A Gigantic System 
Working Without a Hitch 10 

Chapter III. Ships and the Men Who 
Made Them 

The Emergency Fleet Corporation — Charles M. Schwab as 
Master Shipbuilder — Hog Island the Wonder Shipyard of 
the World — An Unbeatable Record — Concrete Ships — 
Wooden Ships — Standardizing the Steel Ship — Attitude 
of Labor in the War — Samuel Gompers an Unofficial Mem- 
ber of the Cabinet— Great Task of the United States 
Employment Service 23 

Chapter IV. Germany's Dying Des- 
perate Effort 

The High Tide of German Success — An Army of Six Million 
Men Flung Recklessly on the Allies — Most Terrific Battles 
in all History— The Red Ruin of War from Arras to St. 
Quentin— Amiens Within Arms' Reach of the Invaders- 
Paris Bombarded by Long-Range Guns from Distance of 
Seventy-six Miles — A Generalissimo at Last — Marshal Foch 
in Supreme Command , , , 43 



iv CONTENTS 

Chapter V. Chateau-Thierry, Field pao " 
of Glory 

German Wave Stops with the Americans — Prussian Guard 
Flung Back — The Beginning of Autocracy's End — America's 
Record of Valor and Victory — Cantigny — Belleau Wood — 
Thierry — St. Mihiel — Shock Troops of the Enemy Anni- 
hilated — Soldier's Remarkable Letter 73 

Chapter VI. England and Prance 
Strike in the North 

Second Terrific Blow of General Foch — Lens, the Storehouse 
of Minerals Captured — Bapaume Retaken — British Snap 
the Famous Hindenburg Line — The Great Thrust Through 
Cambrai— Tanks to the Front — Cavalry in Action . . 103 

Chapter VII. Belgium's Gallant Ef- 
fort 

The Little Army Under King Albert Thrusts Savagely at 
the Germans — Ostend and Zeebrugge Freed from the Sub- 
marine Pirates — Pathetic Scenes as Belgians are Restored 
to their Homes 120 

Chapter VIII. Italy's Terrific Drive 

Enemy Offensive Opens on Front of Ninety-seven Miles — 
Repulse of the Austrians — Italy Turns the Tables — Terrific 
Counter-Thrusts from the Piave to Trente — Forcing the 
Alpine Passages — Battles High in the Air — English, French 
and Americans Back up the Italians in Humbling the Might 
of Austria — D'Annunzio's Romantic Bombardment of 
Vienna — Diaz Leads His Men to Victory 139 

Chapter IX. Bulgaria Deserts Ger- 
many 

Greece in the Throes of Revolution — Fall of Constantine — 
Serbians Begin Advance on Bulgars — Thousands of Prisoners 
Taken — Surrender of Bulgaria — Panic in Berlin — Passage 
Through the Country Granted for Armies of the Allies — 
Ferdinand Abdicates — Germany's Imagined Mittel-Europa 
Dream Forever Destroyed 154 



CONTENTS v 

Chapter X. The Central Empires pag " 
Whine for Peace 

Austria-Hungary Makes the First Plea — President Wilson's 
Abrupt Answer — Prince Max Camouflaged as an Apostle 
of Peace made Chancellor and Opens Germany's Pathetic 
Plea for a Peace by Negotiation — The President Replies 
on Behalf of all the Allied Powers — Foch Pushes on Regard- 
less of Peace Notes 175 

Chapter XI. Battles in the Air 

Conquering the Fear of Death — From Individual Fights to 
Battles Between Squadrons — Heroes of the Warring Nations 
— America's Wonderful Record — From Nowhere to First 
Place in Eighteen Months— The Liberty Motor . . . .191 

Chapter XII. Health and Happiness 
of the American Forces 

Record of the Red Cross on all Fronts — A Gigantic Work 
Well Executed— Y. M. C. A.— Y. W. C. A.— Knights of 
Columbus — Jewish Welfare Association — Salvation Army — 
American Library Association — Other Organizations — 
Surgery and Sanitation 210 






ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOLUME V 
Jerusalem Delivered Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The First of the Tidal Wave of Khaki . . 22 
The Largest Ship in the World as a U. S. 

Transport 26 

The Greatest Shipyard in the World ... 34 

The German General Staff 70 

America Gets into the War at Cantigny . . 74 
Chateau-Thierry, Where America Inflicted a 

Second Gettysburg on Germany .... 82 
Wiping out the St. Mihiel Salient .... 86 

Famous British Generals 114 

Storming the Mole at Zeebrugge 126 

Belgian Sovereigns Re-enter Bruges . . . 136 

The First Day on the Piave 146 

American Troops on the Italian Front . . 148 

Picking one "Off the Tail" 194 

The Y. M. C. A. in the Front Line Trenches 216 



THE WORLD WAR 

CHAPTER I 

Redemption of the Holy Land 

FROM the beginning of the war the Ger- 
man General Staff and the British War 
Office planned the occupation of Palestine and 
Macedonia. Germany wanted domination of 
that territory because through it lay the open 
road to Egypt and British prestige in the East. 
Turkey was the cat's paw of the Hun in this 
enterprise. German officers and German guns 
were supplied to the Turks, but the terrible 
privations necessary in a long campaign that 
must be spent largely in the desert, and the 
inevitable great loss in human life, were both 
demanded from Turkey. 

Great Britain made no such demands upon 
any of its Allies. Unflinchingly England 
faced virtually alone the rigors, the disease and 

Vol 5—1 l 



2 THE WORLD WAR 

the deaths consequent upon an expedition hav- 
ing as its object the redemption of the Holy 
Land from the unspeakable Turk. 

Volunteers for the expedition came by the 
thousands. Canada, the United States, Aus- 
tralia and other countries furnished whole regi- 
ments of Jewish youths eager for the cam- 
paign. The inspiration and the devotion radi- 
ating from Palestine, and particularly from 
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, drew Jew and Gen- 
tile, hardy adventurer and zealous churchman, 
into Allenby's great army. 

It was a long campaign. On February 26, 
1917, Kut-el-Amara was recaptured from the 
Turks by the British expedition under com- 
mand of General Sir Stanley Maude, and on 
March 11th following General Maude cap- 
tured Bagdad. From that time forward pres- 
sure upon the Turks was continuous. On Sep- 
tember 29, 1917, the Turkish Mesopotamian 
army commanded by Ahmed Bey was routed 
by the British, and historic Beersheba in Pales- 
tine was occupied on October 31st. The un- 
timely death of General Maude, the hero of 



THE HOLY LAND 3 

Mesopotamia, on November 18th, 1917, tem- 
porarily cast gloom over the Allied forces but 
it had no deterrent effect upon their successful 
operations. Siege was laid to Jerusalem and 
its environs late in November, and on Decem- 
ber 8, 1917, the Holy City which had been held 
by the Turks for six hundred and seventy -three 
years surrendered to General Allenby and his 
British army. Thus ended a struggle for pos- 
sesion of the holiest of shrines both of the Old 
and New Testaments, that had cost millions 
of lives during fruitless crusades and had been 
the center of religious aspirations for ages. 
General Allenby's official report follows : 
"I entered the city officially at noon Decem- 
ber 11th with a few of my staff, the command- 
ers of the French and Italian detachments, the 
heads of the political missions, and the military 
attaches of France, England, and America. 

"The procession was all afoot, and at Jaffa 
gate I was received by the guards representing 
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, 
New Zealand, India, France and Italy. The 
population received me well. 



4 



THE WORLD WAR 



"Guards have been placed over the holy- 
places. My military governor is in contact 



C.CA&f£JL 




How the British Army Trapped the Turks 

with the acting custodians and the Latin and 
Greek representatives. The governor has de- 
tailed an officer to supervise the holy places. 



THE HOLY LAND 5 

The Mosque of Omar and the area around it 
have been placed under Moslem control, and a 
military cordon of Mohammedan officers and 
soldiers has been established around the 
mosque. Orders have been issued that no non- 
Moslem is to pass within the cordon without 
permission of the military governor and the 
Moslem in charge." 

A proclamation in Arabic, Hebrew, English, 
French, Italian, Greek and Russian was posted 
in the citadel, and on all the walls proclaiming 
martial law and intimating that all the holy 
places would be maintained and protected ac- 
cording to the customs and beliefs of those to 
whose faith they were sacred. The proclama- 
tion read: 

PROCLAMATION 

To the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Blessed and the 
People Dwelling in Its Vicinity. 

The defeat inflicted upon the Turks by the troops 
under my command has resulted in the occupation of 
your city by my forces. I, therefore, proclaim it to be 
under martial law, under which form of administration 
it will remain so long as military consideration makes 
necessary. 

However, lest any of you be alarmed by reason of 



6 THE WORLD WAR 

your experience at the hands of the enemy who has 
retired, I hereby inform you that it is my desire that 
every person should pursue his lawful business without 
fear of interruption. 

Furthermore, since your city is regarded with affec- 
tion by the adherents of three of the great religions of 
mankind and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers 
and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of these 
three religions for many centuries, therefore, do I make 
it known to you that every sacred building, monument, 
holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious be- 
quest, or customary place of prayer of whatsoever form 
of the three religions will be maintained and protected 
according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to 
whose faith they are sacred. 

Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and 
on Rachel's Tomb. The tomb at Hebron has been placed 
under exclusive Moslem control. 

The hereditary custodians at the gates of the Holy 
Sepulchre have been requested to take up their ac- 
customed duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act 
of the Caliph Omar, who protected that church. 

Jerusalem was now made the center of the 
British operations against the Turks in Pales- 
tine. Mohammed V, the Sultan of Turkey, 
died July 3, 1918, and many superstitious 
Turks looked upon that event as forecasting 
the end of the Turkish Empire. The Turkish 
army in Palestine was left largely to its fate by 



THE HOLY LAND % 

Germany and Austria, and although it was 
numerically a formidable opponent for Gen- 
eral Allenby's forces, that distinguished strate- 
gist fairly outmaneuvered the Turkish High 
Command in every encounter. The beginning 
of the end for Turkish misrule in Palestine 
came on September 20th when the ancient town 
of Nazareth was captured by the British. h 

A military net was thereupon closed upon 
the Turkish army. The fortified towns of 
Beisan and Afule followed the fate of Naza- 
reth. In one day's fighting 18,000 Turkish 
prisoners, 120 guns, four airplanes, a number 
of locomotives and cars, and a great quantity of 
military and food supplies were bagged by the 
victorious British. So well did Allenby plan 
that the British losses were far the smallest 
suffered in any large operation of the entire 
war. It was the swiftest and most decisive vic- 
tory of any scored by the Allies. It ended the 
grandiose dream of Germany for an invasion 
of Egypt in stark disaster, and swept the Holy 
Land clear of the Turks. 

This great battle on the Biblical field of 



8 THE WORLD WAR 

Armageddon was remarkable in that it was 
virtually the only engagement during the entire 
war offering the freest scope to cavalry opera- 
tions. British cavalry commands operated 
over a radius of sixty miles between the Jordan 
and the Mediterranean, sweeping the Turks 
before them. 

By September 25th the total bag of Turkish 
prisoners exceeded 40,000. Munition depots 
covering acres of ground were taken. Whole 
companies of Turkish soldiers were found sit- 
ting on their white flags waiting for the British 
to accept their terms. Two hundred sixty-five 
pieces of artillery were captured. 

Damascus was captured on Tuesday, Octo- 
ber 1st after an advance of 130 miles by Gen- 
eral Allenby since September 1st the day of his 
surprise attack north of Jerusalem. During 
that period a total of 73,000 prisoners was cap- 
tured. 

Palestine's delivery from the Turks was 
complete. Official announcement was made 
by the British War Office that the total casual- 



THE HOLY LAND 9 

ties from all sources in this final campaign was 
less than 4,000. 

Plans for the government of the people of 
Palestine were announced immediately. Their 
general scope was outlined in an agreement 
made between the British, French and Russian 
governments in 1916. Under that arrange- 
ment Republican France was charged with the 
preparation of a scheme of self-government. 
The town of Alexandretta was fixed upon as a 
free port of entry for the new nation. 



CHAPTER II 

Transportation Problems 

WHEN America entered the war there 
was a very great increase in the volume 
of business of the railroads of the country. 
The roads were already so crowded by what the 
Allies had done in purchasing war supplies, 
that a great deal of confusion had resulted. 
The Allies had expended more than three bil- 
lion dollars in the United States and as nearly 
all of their purchases had to be sent to a few 
definite points for shipment to Europe, the con- 
gestion at those points had become a serious dif- 
ficulty. Thousands of loaded cars had to stand 
for long periods awaiting the transfer of their 
contents to ships. This meant that thousands 
of cars which had been taken from lines in 
other parts of the country would be in a traffic 

blockade for weeks at a time. The main dif- 

10 



TRANSPORTATION 11 

ficulty appeared to be that of getting trains 
unloaded promptly. 

The declaration of war by the United 
States made the situation very much worse. 
Not only did the railroads have to handle the 
freight destined for the Allies, but there was 
a very large addition to the passenger move- 
ment on account of the thousands of men that 
were being sent to the various training camps, 
and the immense masses of supplies that had 
to be sent to these camps. This included not 
only the ordinary supplies to the men but thou- 
sands of carloads of lumber. Moreover, all 
over the country mills and factories were now 
being handed over to the government for war 
work ; and to them, too, great quantities of raw 
material had to be sent, and the finished prod- 
uct removed to its destination. 

A vigorous endeavor to meet the new diffi- 
culties was instituted by the railroads them- 
selves. They themselves named a war board, 
which was to co-operate with the government 
and which was to have absolute authority. 
But this arrangement soon proved unsatisfac- 



12 THE WORLD WAR 

tory. Each government official would do his 
best to obtain preference for what his depart- 
ment required, and to obtain that preference 
a system of priority tags was established which 
became a great abuse. The result was that 
priority freight soon began to crowd out the 
freight which the railroads could handle ac- 
cording to their own discretion, thus seriously 
interfering with business all over the country. 
Naturally, the railroad executives and the 
government authorities studied the question 
with the greatest care, but they could not 
reach an understanding among themselves, nor 
with the Administration. At last the Presi- 
dent settled the matter by announcing his de- 
cision to have the government take over com- 
plete control of the roads. The President de- 
rived his power from an Act of Congress dated 
August 29, 1916, which reads as follows: 

The President in time of war is empowered, through 
the Secretary of War, to take possession and assume con- 
trol of any system or systems of transportation, or any 
part thereof, and to utilize the same to the exclusion, 
as far as may be necessary, of all other traffic thereon, 
for the transfer or transportation of troops, war ma- 



TRANSPORTATION 13 

terial and equipment, or for such other purposes con- 
nected with the emergency as may be needful or desir- 
able. 

The proclamation went into effect on De- 
cember 28, 1917, and the President declared 
that it applied to "each and every system of 
transportation and the appurtenances thereof, 
located, wholly or in part, within the bounda- 
ries of the Continental United States, and con- 
sisting of railroads and owned or controlled 
systems of coastwise and inland transporta- 
tion, engaged in general transportation, 
whether operated by steam, or by electric 
power, including also terminals, terminal com- 
panies, and terminal associations, sleeping and 
parlor cars, private cars, and private car lines, 
elevators, warehouses, telegraph and telephone 
lines, and all other equipment and appurte- 
nances commonly used upon or operated as a 
part of such rail or combined rail and water 
systems of transportation. . . . That the 
possession, control, operation, and utilization 
of such transportation systems shall be exer- 
cised by and through William G. McAdoo, who 



14 THE WORLD WAR 

is hereby appointed, and designated Director 
General of Railroads. Said Director may 
perform the duties imposed upon him so long 
and to such an extent as he shall determine 
through the boards of directors, receivers, offi- 
cers and employees, of said system of trans- 
portation." President Wilson issued an ex- 
planation with this proclamation in which he 
said: 

This is a war of resources no less than of men, per- 
haps even more than of men, and it is necessary for the 
complete mobilization of our resources that the trans- 
portation systems of the counhy should be organized 
and employed under a single authority and to simplify 
methods for co-ordination which have not proved pos- 
sible under private management and control. A com- 
mittee of railway executives who have been co-operating 
with the government in this all-important matter, have 
done the utmost that it was possible for them to do, but 
there were differences that they could neither escape 
nor neutralize. Complete unity of administration in the 
present circumstances involves upon occasion, and at 
many points, a serious dislocation of earnings, and the 
committee was, of course, without power or authority 
to rearrange charges or effect proper compensations in 
adjustments of earnings. Several roads which were will- 
ingly and with admirable public spirit accepting the 
orders of the committee, have already suffered from 



TRANSPORTATION 15 

these circumstances, and should not be required to suffer 
further. In mere fairness to them, the full authority 
of the government must be substituted. The public in- 
terest must be first served, and in addition the financial 
interests of the government, and the financial interests 
of the railways must be brought under a common direc- 
tion. The financial operations of the railway need not, 
then, interfere with the borrowings of the government, 
and they themselves can be conducted at a great ad- 
vantage. Investors in railway securities may rest as- 
sured that their rights and interests will be as scrupu- 
lously looked after by the government as they could be 
by the directors of the several railway systems. Im- 
mediately upon the reassembling of Congress I shall 
recommend that these different guarantees be given. 
The Secretary of War and I are agreed that, all the 
circumstances being taken into consideration, the best 
results can be obtained under the immediate executive 
direction of the Honorable William G. McAdoo, whose 
practical experience peculiarly fits him for the service, 
and whose authority as Secretary of the Treasurer will 
enable him to co-ordinate, as no other man could, the 
many financial interests which will be involved, and 
which might, unless systematically directed, suffer very 
embarrassing entanglements. 

President Wilson's proclamation stirred up 
great excitement on the stock market. 
Speculators rushed to buy back railroad stocks 
which they had previously sold short, and the 



16 THE WORLD WAR 

market value of such stocks was raised more 
than three hundred and fifty million dollars 
as a result. The Federal Government's as- 
sumption of control of the railroads was gen- 
erally recognized as the proper act under ex- 
isting circumstances, and the guarantee of pre- 
war earnings made them a good investment. 

The railroad system in the United States 
consists of 260,000 miles of railroad, owned by 
41 distinct corporations, with about 650,000 
shareholders. It employs 1,600,000 men and 
represents a property investment of $17,500,- 
000,000. The outstanding capital in round 
numbers is $16,000,000,000, $9,000,000,000 of 
which is represented by a funded debt. The 
rolling stock comprises 61,000 locomotives, 
2,250,000 freight cars, 52,000 passenger cars 
and 95,000 service cars. All this was now un- 
der the charge of William G. McAdoo. On 
January 4, 1918, President Wilson explained 
his plan to Congress, and recommended legis- 
lation to put the new system of control into 
effect, and to guarantee to the holders of rail- 
road stocks and bonds a net annual income 



TRANSPORTATION 17 

equal to the average net income for the three 
years ending June 30, 1917. 

The wise recommendations of President 
Wilson were at once approved by Congress; 
provision was made for guaranteeing the rail- 
roads the income which he recommended, and 
for financing the roads. The railroads' war 
board was abolished and Mr. McAdoo ap- 
pointed an advisory board to assist him. This 
board consisted of John Skelton Williams, 
Controller of the Currency; Hale Kolden, 
President of the Chicago, Burlington and 
Quincy Railroad; Henry Walters, Chairman 
of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Coast 
Line; Edward Chambers, Vice-President of 
the Santa Fe Railroad and head of the trans- 
portation division of the United States Food 
Administration; Walter D. Hines, Chairman 
of the Executive Committee of the Santa Fe. 
Specific duties were assigned to the various 
members of this committee. Mr. Williams 
was to deal with the financial problem; Mr. 
Holden to assume direction of committees and 
sub-committees, and other phases of the work 

5—2 



18 THE WORLD WAR 

were allotted to other members. Mr. Walter 
D. Hines was made assistant to the Director 
General. 

Mr. McAdoo's first order was to pool all 
terminals, ports, locomotives, rolling stock and 
other transportation facilities. Another or- 
der had as its object to end the congestion of 
traffic in New York City and Chicago. It 
gave all lines entering these centers equal rights 
in trackage and water terminal facilities. This 
wiped out the identity of the great Pennsyl- 
vania Terminal Station in New York, and gave 
all railroads the use of the Pennsylvania tubes 
under the Hudson River. 

The effect of government control of the rail- 
roads was felt from the very first. Coal was 
given the right of way, giving great relief 
to such sections as were suffering from fuel 
shortage. Many passenger trains were 
taken off, more than two hundred and 
fifty of such trains being dropped from 
the schedules of the eastern roads. This 
permitted a great increase in the freight traf- 
fic. Orders were also given that all empty 



TRANSPORTATION 19 

box cars were to be sent to wheat-producing 
centers, so that wheat could be moved to the 
Atlantic sea coasts for shipment to England 
and France. These orders preceded the adop- 
tion of the railroad control bill, which was not 
passed by Congress until March 14th. A fea- 
ture of the bill is the proviso that government 
control of the railroads shall not continue more 
than twenty-one months after the war. After 
the passing of the bill plans were made to make 
contracts with each railroad company for gov- 
ernment compensation on the basis provided 
in the bill. 

The action of the government in thus assum- 
ing control of the railroads very naturally led 
to wide differences of opinion, some of which 
were sharply expressed in the Congress of the 
United States. On the whole, however, pub- 
lic opinion decided that the government acted 
wisely. Certain inconveniences to the travel- 
ing public were easily excused when it was 
realized that the movement of troops through- 
out the country to the camps, or from the camps 
to the ports which were to take them across the 



20 THE WORLD WAR 

sea, from "Texas to Toul," was being accom- 
plished with great success; that the movement 
of war material was now possible, and that the 
gigantic railroad system was working with- 
out a hitch. 

Many details, in connection with the rail- 
road management, were not at once worked 
out, and many months passed without com- 
plete agreements regarding the railway oper- 
ating contracts. But this was a matter of 
greater interest to the owners than it was to 
patriotic citizens, anxious for the winning of 
the war. Governmental control of the rail- 
roads was only a beginning. On July 16th 
President Wilson took control, for the pe- 
riod of the war, of all telegraph, telephone, 
cable and radio lines, signing a bill on that 
day passed by Congress authorizing such 
action. 

The transportation of the American army 
across the ocean was the greatest military feat 
of its kind ever accomplished in history. The 
transportation of English troops during the 
Boer War meant a longer journey, but the 



TRANSPORTATION 21 

number of troops sent on that journey was but 
a small fraction of America's army. 

The railroads in existence were not sufficient. 
The ships that were necessary could not be 
found in America's navy. It was necessary to 
build new roads, new docks, new terminals, 
new bases of supplies in America, and to send 
abroad thousands of trained workman and ex- 
perienced railroad engineers to build similar 
necessities in France. To convey the millions 
of men across the water England had to come 
to the rescue, and though hundreds of Ameri- 
can ships were built with a speed that was al- 
most miraculous, they were in constant need of 
the assistance of the Allies. But wonderful 
men were put in charge of the work, wonderful 
organizers with wonderful assistants, and the 
great task was accomplished. 

As soon as the army was trained it was sent 
across — first by thousands, then by tens of 
thousands, then by hundreds of thousands, un- 
til before the war was over more than two mil- 
lion men had made the great trip "over there." 
And throughout that whole trip they were 



22 THE WORLD WAR 

watched over as carefully as if they were at 
home. Every want was supplied ; food, cloth- 
ing, munitions were all where they were 
needed. Even their leisure hours were looked 
after, their health attended to. Books, games, 
theaters, study classes, all were there. 

It was a wonderful performance, and the 
whole movement was conducted with clock-like 
precision. On such a day at such an hour the 
trained soldier would start. At such an hour 
he would report in some Atlantic port. At 
such an hour and such a minute he would board 
ship, and with equal precision that ship would 
sail upon the appointed moment. Perhaps on 
the journey over some submarine might de- 
lay the ship, but the destroyers were there on 
the alert, and the submarine was but an amus- 
ing episode. On the other side the process was 
carried on with equal efficiency. Before the 
American doughboy could realize that he was 
in France he was in his quarters, just like home, 
in the base camps behind the fighting line, and 
it was this miracle of transportation that won 
the war. 



CHAPTER III 

Ships and the Men Who Made Them 

WHEN the United States of America 
entered the World War she was con- 
fronted at once by a serious question. The 
great Allied nations were struggling against 
the attempt of the Germans, through the pirat- 
ical use of submarines, to blockade the coast 
of the Allied countries. It was this German 
action which had led America to take part in 
the war. It is true that America had other 
motives. Few wars ever take place among 
democratic nations as a result of the calcula- 
tion of the nation's leaders. The people must 
be interested, and the people must sympathize 
with the cause for which they are going to 
fight. The people of America had sympa- 
thized with Belgium, and had become indig- 
nant at the brutal treatment of that inoffen- 
sive nation. They had sympathized with 

23 



24 THE WORLD WAR 

France in its gallant endeavor to protect its 
soil from the inroads of the Hun. This feel- 
ing had become a personal one as they reviewed 
the lists of Americans lost in the sinking of the 
Lusitania, and this sympathy had gradually 
grown into indignation when the Germans, 
after having promised to conduct submarine 
warfare according to international law, again 
and again violated that promise. When, then, 
the Germans declared that they would no 
longer even pretend to treat neutral shipping 
according to the laws of maritime warfare the 
people with one accord approved the action of 
the President of the United States in declaring 
war. The Germans at this time were making a 
desperate effort to starve England, by destroy- 
ing its commerce, and it was in the endeavor to 
accomplish this purpose that they thought it 
necessary to attack American ships. 

The first effort of Americans, therefore, was 
naturally to use every power of the navy to 
destroy the lurking submarines, and in the sec- 
ond place to use every means in their power to 
supply the Allies with food. But America 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 25 

had for many years neglected to give encour- 
agement to her merchant fleets. Her com- 
merce was very largely carried in foreign bot- 
toms. 

Ships were needed, and needed urgently, and 
one of the very first acts of the American Gov- 
ernment was to authorize their production. 
Congress therefore appropriated for this pur- 
pose what was then the extraordinary sum of 
$1,135,000,000 and General Goethals, recently 
returned from his work in building the Pan- 
ama Canal, was appointed manager of the 
Emergency Fleet Corporation and entrusted 
with the execution of the government's ship- 
building program. 

The Emergency Fleet Corporation, how- 
ever, was then independent of the United 
States Shipping Board, of which Mr. William 
Denman was made chairman, and friction be- 
tween General Goethals and Mr. Denman at 
the very start caused long delay. The differ- 
ence of opinion between them arose over the 
comparative merits of wooden am! steel ships. 
The matter was finally laid before President 



26 THE WORLD WAR 

Wilson and ended in the resignation of both 
men and the complete reorganization of the 
board and the Fleet Corporation, in which re- 
organization the Fleet Corporation was made 
subordinate to the Shipping Board but given 
entire control of construction. 

Rear-Admiral Capps succeeded General 
Goethals, but was compelled to resign on ac- 
count of ill health. Rear-Admiral Harris, 
who had been chief of the Navy's Bureau of 
Yards and Docks, then had the job for two 
weeks, but resigned because in his opinion he 
had not enough authority. Then came Mr. 
Charles Piez, who held the position for a longer 
period. Mr. Edward N. Hurley had been 
made chairman of the United States Shipping 
Board, and under the direction of these two 
men much progress was made. 

In the spring of 1918 the boards themselves 
were not satisfied with their progress, and on 
April 16, 1918, Mr. Charles M. Schwab, chair- 
man of the Board of Directors of the Bethle- 
hem Steel Corporation, was made Director 
General of the Emergency Fleet Corpora- 







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SHIPS AND THE MEN 27 

tion. Mr. Schwab was one of the most promi- 
nent business men in the United States and 
one of the best known, and his appointment 
was received all over the country with the 
greatest satisfaction. His wonderful work in 
building up the Bethlehem steel plant not only 
showed his great ability, but especially fitted 
him for a task in which the steel industry bore 
such a vital part. The official statement is- 
sued from the White House read as follows : 

Edward N. Hurley, Charles M. Schwab, Bainbridge 
Colby and Charles Piez were received by the President 
at the White House today. It was stated that the sub- 
ject discussed was the progress and condition of a na- 
tional ship-building program. The carrying forward of 
the construction work in the one hundred and thirty 
shipyards now in operation is so vast that it requires a 
reinforcement of the ship-building organization through- 
out the country. Later in the day Chairman Hurley of 
the Shipping Board announced that a new office with 
wide powers had been created by the Trustees of the 
Emergency Fleet Corporation. The new position is that 
of Director General and Mr. Schwab has been asked, 
and has agreed, to accept this position in answer to the 
call of the nation. Charles Piez, Vice-President of the 
Emergency Fleet Corporation, recommended that the 
post of General Manager of the corporation be at once 
abolished, so that Mr. Schwab as Director General 



28 THE WORLD WAR 

should be wholly unhampered in carrying on the large 
task entrusted to him. Mr. Piez, since the retirement 
of Admiral Harris, has been filling both the position 
of Vice-President and that of General Manager. Mr. 
Schwab will have complete supervision and direction of 
the work of ship-building. He agreed to take up the 
work at the sacrifice of his personal wishes in the mat- 
ter. His services were virtually commandeered. His 
great experience as a steel maker and builder of ships 
has been drafted for the nation. 

Although the fact that production during 
the month of March had not been as great as 
had been hoped probably brought about this 
change, it should also be said that those who 
had been responsible deserved much credit for 
what had actually been done. They had been 
handicapped constantly by poor transporta- 
tion and shortage of materials, but had worked 
faithfully and with what under ordinary cir- 
cumstances would be regarded as remarkable 
success. The call upon Mr. Schwab was sim- 
ply an effort to draft into the service of the 
country its very highest executive ability. 
Mr. Schwab's name had been mentioned be- 
fore for more than one government post, and 
it was thought that here was the place where 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 29 

his talents could have the fullest play. It was 
stated in Washington that he would receive a 
salary of one dollar a year. 

Mr. Schwab at once proceeded to "speed 
up" the shipping program. It took him just 
one day to arrange his own business affairs and 
then he began his work. His first day was 
spent in going over the details of his task with 
Chairman Hurley and Mr. Piez. He then 
received newspaper men, beginning the cam- 
paign of publicity which turned out to be so 
successful. He was full of compliments for 
the work which had already been done. "It 
is prodigious, splendid, magnificent!" he said. 
"It is far greater than any man who hasn't 
seen the inside of things can appreciate. The 
foundation is laid. That task is well done. 
We are going to get the results which are 
needed and I should be proud if I could have 
any part in the accomplishment. All I can 
say for myself is that I am filled with enthusi- 
asm, energy and confidence. Mr. Hurley and 
I are in full accord on everything, and we are 
going to work shoulder to shoulder to make 



30 THE WORLD WAR 

the work a success, but the large burden must 
fall upon the people at the yards, and they are 
entitled to any credit for success. I do not 
want to have any man in the shipyards working 
for me. I want them all working with me. 
Nothing is going to be worth while unless we 
win this war, and every one must do the task 
to which he is called." 

One of the first steps that Mr. Schwab took 
to speed up ship production was to establish 
his headquarters in Philadelphia, as the center 
of the ship-building region. Chairman Hur- 
ley remained at Washington, and the operating 
department, which included agencies such as 
the Inter- Allied Ship Control Committee, was 
removed to New York City. It was stated 
that nearly fifty per cent of the work in prog- 
ress was within a short radius of Philadelphia. 

The year before the war the total output of 
the United States shipyards was only two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand tons. The program of 
the shipping board contemplated the construc- 
tion of one thousand one hundred and forty-five 
steel ships, with a tonnage of eight million, one 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 31 

hundred and sixty-four thousand, five hundred 
and eight, and four hundred and ninety wooden 
ships, with a tonnage of one million seven hun- 
dred and fifteen thousand. These of course 
could not be built in the shipyards then in ex- 
istence. New shipyards had to be built in 
various parts of the country. 

In the first year after the shipping board 
took control, one hundred and eighty-eight 
ships were put in the water and through 
requisition and by building, one hundred and 
three more were added to the American mer- 
chant fleet. By April, 1918, the government 
had at its service 2,762,605 tons of shipping. 
During the month of May, the first month 
after Mr. Schwab began his work, the record 
of production had mounted from 160,286 tons 
to 263,571. American shipyards had com- 
pleted and delivered during that month forty- 
three steel ships and one wooden ship. Mr. 
Hurley, in an address on June 10th, said: 

On June 1st, we had increased the American built ton- 
nage to over 3,500,000 dead-weight tons of shipping. 
This gives us a total of more than one thousand four 



32 THE WORLD WAR 

hundred ships with an approximate total dead-weight 
tonnage of 7,000,000 now under the control of the 
United States Shipping Board. In round numbers and 
from all sources we have added to the American flag 
since our war against Germany began, nearly 4,500,000 
tons of shipping. Our program calls for the building 
of 1,856 passenger, cargo and refrigerator ships and 
tankers, ranging from five thousand to twelve thousand 
tons each, with an aggregate dead-weight of thirteen 
million. Exclusive of these we have two hundred and 
forty-five commandeered vessels, taken over from foreign 
and domestic owners which are being completed by the 
Emergency Fleet Corporation. These will aggregate a 
total dead-weight tonnage of 1,715,000. This makes a 
total of two thousand one hundred and one vessels, ex- 
clusive of tugs and barges which are being built and 
will be put on the seas in the course of carrying out the 
present program, with an aggregate dead-weight tonnage 
of 14,715,000. Five billion dollars will be required to 
finish our program, but the expenditure of this enormous 
sum will give to the American people the greatest mer- 
chant fleet ever assembled in the history of the world. 
American workmen have made the expansion of recent 
months possible, and they will make possible the suc- 
cessful conclusion of the whole program. 

In the wonderful work that followed his ap- 
pointment Mr. Schwab constantly came before 
the public, mainly through his addresses to 
the working men of the different yards. His 
main endeavor was to stimulate enthusiasm and 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 33 

rivalry among the men. A ten-thousand-dol- 
lar prize was offered to the yard producing the 
largest surplus above its program, and he 
traveled throughout the country urging the 
employees at all the great yards to break their 
records. The result of his work was that it 
was not long before it was announced that the 
monthly tonnage of ships completed by the 
Allies exceeded the tonnage of those sunk by 
the German submarine. The menace of the 
submarine which had seemed so formidable, 
had disappeared. 

The most important of the great shipyards 
which were producing the American cargo 
ships was at Hog Island in the southwest part 
of Philadelphia. This shipyard may indeed 
be called the greatest shipyard in the world. 
Before Mr. Schwab became Director General 
much criticism had been launched at the work 
that was going on there, and an investigation 
had been made which resulted in a favorable 
report. On August 5th the new shipyard 
launched its first ship, the 7,500 ton freight 
steamer, Quistconck, in the presence of a dis- 

5—3 



34 THE WORLD WAR 

tinguished throng among whom were the 
President of the United States and Mrs. 
Woodrow Wilson. The ship was christened 
by Mrs. Wilson, and the President swung his 
hat and led the cheers as the great ship glided 
down the ways. The name "Quistconck" is 
the ancient Indian name of Hog Island. The 
crowd numbered more than sixty thousand peo- 
ple, and special trains from Washington and 
New York brought many notable guests. 
President and Mrs. Wilson were escorted by 
Mr. Hurley and Mr. Schwab, and apparently 
thoroughly enjoyed the occasion. An enor- 
mous bouquet was presented to Mrs. Wilson by 
Foreman McMillan, who had driven the first 
rivet in the Quistconck's keel. 

Shortly after the armistice it was announced 
the Hog Island plant would be acquired by 
the United States Government. The real 
estate, valued at $1,760,000, was owned by the 
American International Ship Building Com- 
pany, and the government had invested about 
$60,000,000 in equipping the plant. At the 
time the war ended thirty-five thousand per- 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 35 

sons were at work and a hundred and eighty- 
ships were in various stages of completion. 

An interesting feature in connection with 
the endeavor to "speed up" was the competi- 
tion in riveting. Early in the year in yard 
after yard expert riveters were reported as 
making extraordinary records, and prizes were 
offered to the winners of such records. Later, 
however, such contests were discouraged by 
Chairman Hurley and by others. The best 
record was made by John Omir, who drove 
twelve thousand two hundred and nine rivets 
in nine hours at the Belfast Yards of Work- 
man and Clark. In the accomplishment of 
this feat on two occasions he passed the mark 
of one thousand four hundred rivets an hour. 
In his best minute he drove twenty-six rivets. 

The ships constructed by the Shipping 
Board were of steel, of wood and of concrete, 
and at times considerable difference of opin- 
ion existed with regard to which form of ship 
should receive the most attention. The policy 
of the government seemed finally to favor the 
steel as it was claimed that the wooden type was 



36 THE WORLD WAR 

not only more expensive, but that it was less 
efficient. However until the very end wooden 
ships in great numbers were being built. 

On May 31st the steamship Agawam, de- 
scribed as the first fabricated ship in the world, 
was launched in the yards of the Submarine 
Boat Corporation at Newark. This was es- 
sentially a standardized steel cargo ship. 
"Fabricated" is the technical term applied to 
ships built from numbered shapes made from 
patterns. 

President Carse, of the Submarine Boat 
Corporation, said that the Agawam was the 
first of a hundred and fifty vessels of that 
type which would be constructed in the yard. 
The parts were made, he said, in bridge and 
tank shops throughout the country and were 
assembled at the yard. "Ninety-five per cent 
of the work in forming the parts entering into 
the hull of this vessel, and punching rivet holes, 
is done at shops widely separated, from draw- 
ings furnished by this company, and these 
drawings have been of such exactitude, and the 
work has been so carefully performed by the 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 37 

different bridge shops that when they are 
brought together at this yard they fit per- 
fectly and the ship as you see is absolutely fair. 
The construction of the hull of this vessel re- 
quires the driving of over four hundred thou- 
sand rivets, and by our method more than one 
quarter of these rivets are driven at the dis- 
tant shops, the different parts being brought to 
the yard in sections as large as can be trans- 
ported on the railroad. Each part is num- 
bered and lettered and as they are shaped per- 
fectly all that is necessary is to place them in 
position, bolt them, and finally fasten them 
with rivets." 

Officials of the company said that they ex- 
pected to launch in the course of time two such 
vessels in each week. A standard ship of this 
type has a dead weight carrying capacity of 
five thousand five hundred tons. It is three 
hundred and forty-three feet long and forty- 
six feet wide and is expected to show an aver- 
age speed of ten and a half knots. Fuel oil 
is used to generate steam, to drive a turbine 
operating three thousand six hundred revolu- 



38 THE WORLD WAR 

tions a minute. The oil is carried in compart- 
ments of the double bottom of the ship in suffi- 
cient quantity for more than a round trip to 
Europe. Twenty-seven steel mills, fifty-six 
fabricating plants, and two hundred foundries 
and equipment shops were drawn upon to con- 
struct the ship. 

In addition to the steel and wood vessels 
the Emergency Fleet Corporation also con- 
structed a number of concrete ships. The first 
step in this direction was taken on April 3rd, 
when the construction of four 7,500 ton con- 
crete ships at a Pacific coast shipyard was 
authorized. This action was taken as a re- 
sult of a report on the trials made with the 
concrete ship, Faith, which was built in San 
Francisco by private capital. The test of this 
ship had been satisfactory and Mr. R. J. Wig, 
an agent of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, 
who had made a careful inspection of the Faith 
and watched the tests, reported his confidence 
in the new cargo carrier. The successful trial 
trip of the Faith led, on the 17th of May, to 
the government order that fifty-eight more 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 39 

such ships be constructed. Sites for yards 
were leased and contracts awarded. The con- 
crete ship turned out to be a great success. 

The extraordinary success of the American 
ship-building program during the World War 
was due to the enthusiasm of the workmen em- 
ployed at the government plants, and that same 
enthusiasm was found in connection with their 
work in every industry on which the Govern- 
ment made demands. American labor was 
thoroughly loyal. It recognized that in the 
war for democracy against autocracy it had a 
vital concern. The attitude of the great 
American labor unions must however be 
sharply distinguished from that of the extreme 
socialists who refused to take any part in help- 
ing to win the war. 

From the very beginning, the American 
Federation of Labor took a patriotic stand. 
Its leader was Mr. Samuel Gompers, and it 
was fortunate for America that the leadership 
of this great organization was in such patriotic 
hands. Mr. Gompers had been for many 
years president of this great labor organiza- 



40 THE WORLD WAR 

tion, and was so often called in consultation 
by the President of the United States in con- 
nection with labor affairs that he might almost 
be called an unofficial member of the Presi- 
dent's cabinet. Mr. Gompers was by birth an 
Englishman, but he had left his home when 
still a boy and was thoroughly filled with true 
American patriotism. From the beginning he 
devoted himself with the greatest enthusiasm 
not only to the protection of the interests of 
which he was in charge, but to the prosecution 
of a successful war. He had to contend, as 
labor leaders in other countries had been com- 
pelled to contend, with socialistic and anarchis- 
tic organizations. 

During the period of America's participa- 
tion in the war there were certain disturbances 
caused by the I. W. W., but from such move- 
ments the American Federation of Labor held 
itself aloof. Occasional strikes, on account of 
special conditions, were easily settled. The 
governmental assumption of control over rail- 
roads and other essential industries had much 
to do with the peaceful attitude of the work- 



SHIPS AND THE MEN 41 

men. The very high wages which were offered 
to the workmen at munitions works, ship- 
building plants and other governmental en- 
terprises enabled the workmen there to live in 
reasonable comfort, though it caused a great 
deal of trouble in private industry, and com- 
pelled an increase in pay to labor all over the 
land. 

In the latter part of the war Mr. Gompers 
traveled abroad, as a representative of Ameri- 
can labor, and was greeted everywhere with 
the utmost enthusiasm, while his influence was 
strongly felt in favor of moderate and sane 
views as to labor's rights. 

The American situation with regard to labor 
was made much simpler by the organization 
of the United States Employment Service. 
This was made an arm of the Department of 
Labor, with branch offices in nearly all the 
large cities of every State. It had a large 
corps of traveling examiners, men skilled in de- 
termining the fitness of workers for particular 
jobs, and it undertook to recruit labor for the 
various war industries in which they were 



42 THE WORLD WAR 

needed. During the last year of the war from 
a hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred 
thousand workers of all kinds were given work 
each month. In addition to this the Employ- 
ment Service was a clearing house of informa- 
tion for manufacturers. The Director Gen- 
eral of this service was Mr. John B. Densmore. 
Labor throughout the country, except when 
influenced by men of foreign birth who were 
not in touch with the spirit of America, was 
universally loyal, and its share in the winning 
of the war will always remain a matter for 
pride. 



CHAPTER IV 
Germany's Dying Desperate Effort 

IN the spring of 1918 it must have been 
plain to the German High Command that 
if the war was to be won it must be won at 
once. In spite of all their leaders said of the 
impossibility of bringing an American army to 
France they must have been well informed of 
what the Americans were doing. They knew 
that there were already more than two million 
men in active training in the American army, 
and while at that time only a small proportion 
of them were available on the battle front, yet 
every day that proportion was growing greater 
and by the middle of the summer the little 
American army would have become a tre- 
mendous fighting force. 

Their own armies on their western front had 
been enormously increased in size by the re- 
moval to that front of troops from Russia. 

43 



44 THE WORLD WAR 

Hundreds of thousands of their best regiments 
were now withdrawn from the east and incor- 
porated under the command of their great 
Generals, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, in the 
armies of the west. They must, therefore, 
take advantage of this increased force and win 
the war before the Americans could come. 

The problem of the Allies was also simple. 
It was not necessary for them to plan a great 
offensive. All they had to do was to hold out 
until, through the American aid which was 
coming now in such numbers, their armies 
would be so increased that German resistance 
would be futile. Under such circumstances 
began the last great offensive of the German 
army. 

At that time it seems probable that the arm- 
ies of Great Britain and France numbered 
about three million, five hundred thousand 
men, and that, of these, six hundred and sev- 
enty thousand were on the front lines when 
the German attack began leaving an army of 
reserve of about two million, eight hundred 
and fifty thousand men. A considerable 




HOW GERMANT ATTEMPTED TO DIVIDE THE ALLIED 
ARMIES 
The map shows the ground covered by the Germans in the terrific 
Picardy drive of March. 1918, which had for its object the capture of 
Amiens and the push forward along the Somme to the channel, thus 
dividing the British army in the north from the French and Americans 
in the south. 



45 



46 THE WORLD WAR 

number of these were probably in England on 
leave. The number of French soldiers must 
have been between four and five million, of 
whom about one million five hundred thousand 
were on the front line. Adding to these the 
American, Belgian, Portuguese, Russian and 
Polish troops the Allied forces could not have 
been short of eight million, five hundred thou- 
sand men. 

The strength of the Germans on the West- 
ern front before the Russian Revolution was 
probably about four million, five hundred thou- 
sand men, and the withdrawal of Russia from 
the war had added to that number probably 
as many as one million, five hundred thousand 
men, making an army of six million men to 
oppose that of the Allies. The Allies, there- 
fore, must have considerably outnumbered the 
Germans. 

In spite of this fact in nearly all the engage- 
ments in the early part of the great offensive 
the Allied forces were outnumbered in a ratio 
varying from three to one to five to three. 
This was possible, first, because in any offen- 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 47 

sive the attacking side naturally concentrates 
as many troops as it can gather at the point 
from which the offense is to begin, and second, 
since the Allies were not under one command 
it was with great difficulty that arrangements 
could be made by which the forces of one nation 
could reinforce the armies of another. 

The first difficulty of course could not be 
obviated, but the solution of the second diffi- 
culty was the appointment of General Foch 
as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces. 

The appointment was made on March 28th 
and all the influence of the United States had 
been exerted in its favor. General Pershing 
at once offered to General Foch the unre- 
stricted use of the American force in France 
and it was agreed that a large part of the 
American army should be brigaded with the 
Allied troops wherever there were weak spots. 

Foch was already famous as the greatest 
strategist in Europe. He comes of a Basque 
family and was born in the town of Tarbes, 
in the Department of the Hautes-Pyrenees, 
which is on the border of Spain, on October 



48 THE WORLD WAR 

2, 1851. Foch served as a subaltern in the 
Franco-Prussian War and at twenty-six was 
made Captain in the artillery. Later he be- 
came Professor of Tactics in the Ecole de 
Guerre, where he remained for five years. He 
then returned to regimental work and won 
steady promotion until he became Brigadier- 
General. He was sent back to the War Col- 
lege as Director and wrote two books, "The 
Principles of War" and "Conduct of War," 
which have been translated into English, Ger- 
man and Italian and are considered standard 
works. He was now recognized as a man of 
unusual ability and was appointed to the com- 
mand first, of the Thirteenth division, then 
pf the Eighth corps at Bourges, and then 
to the command of the Twentieth corps at 
Nancy. 

Unlike Marshal Joff re who was cool, careful, 
slow moving, Marshal Foch is full of daring 
and impetuosity. Everything is calculated 
scientifically but his strategy is full of dash. 
Many of his sayings have been passed from 
mouth to mouth among the Allies. 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 49 

"Find out the weak point of your enemy and 
deliver your blow there," he said once at a 
staff banquet. 

"But suppose, General," said an officer, 
"that the enemy has no weak point?" 

"If the enemy has no weak point," replied 
the Commander, "make one." 

It was he who telegraphed to Joffre during 
the first battle of the Marne: "The enemy is 
attacking my flank. My rear is threatened. 
I am therefore attacking in front." 

Foch is a great student, an especial admirer 
of Napoleon, whose campaigns he had thor- 
oughly studied. Even the campaigns of 
Caesar he had found valuable and had gathered 
from them practical suggestions for his own 
campaigns. He is the hero of the Marne, the 
man who on September 9th marched his army 
between Von Bulow and Von Hausen's Sax- 
ons, drove the Prussian Guards into the 
marshes of St. Gond and forced both Prus- 
sians and Saxons into their first great retreat. 
Later his armies fought on the Yser while 
the British were battling at Ypres. During 

5—4 



50 THE WORLD WAR 

the battle of the Somme he was on the English 
right pressing to Peronne. 

For a time he became Chief of the French 
Staff, until he was called into the field again 
to his great command. Foch was one of those 
French officers who had felt that war was sure 
to come, and had constantly urged that France 
should be kept in a state of preparedness. 
The appointment of General Foch to the Su- 
preme Command was largely the result of 
American urgency. 

General March, the American Chief of 
Staff, in one of his weekly announcements, 
stated: "One of the most striking things no- 
ticeable in the situation as it is shown on the 
western front is the supreme importance of 
having a single command. The acceptance of 
the principle of having a single command, 
which was advocated by the President of the 
United States and carried through under his 
constant pressure, is one of the most impor- 
tant single military things that has been done 
as far as the Allies are concerned. The unity 
of command which Germany has had from the 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 51 

start of the war has been a very important mili- 
tary asset, and we already see the supreme 
value of having that central command which 
now has been concentrated in General Foch." 
General March, who had earlier been ap- 
pointed Chief of Staff of the United States 
army, was sending a steady stream of Ameri- 
can troops to Europe, a fact whose importance 
was well understood by the new Commander- 
in-Chief. On General March's promotion 
General Foch sent him the following message: 

I hear with deep satisfaction of your promotion to the 
rank of General. I associate myself to the just pride 
which you must feel in evoking the names of your glori- 
ous predecessors, Grant and Sheridan. I convey to you 
my sincere congratulations and I am happy to see you 
assume permanently the huge task of Chief of Staff of 
the United States army which you are already perform- 
ing in so brilliant a way. 

General March replied : 

Your message of congratulation upon my promotion 
to the grade of General Chief of Staff, United States 
army, was personally conveyed to me by General Vignal, 
French Military Attache. I appreciate deeply your 
most kindly greetings and in expressing my most sincere 
thanks, avail myself of the opportunity to assure you of 



52 THE WORLD WAR 

every assistance and constant support which may lie in 
my power to aid you in the furtherance and successful 
accomplishment of your great task. 

General Foch took command at a very- 
critical time. The Germans had prepared the 
most formidable drive in the history of the 
war. They had gathered immense masses of 
munitions and supplies. Their great armies 
had been refitted and they were in hopes of a 
victory which would end the war. Their great 
offensive had many phases. It resulted in the 
development of three great salients, the first 
in Picardy and in the direction of Amiens along 
the Somme, which was launched on March 
21st; the second on the Lys, which was 
launched on April 9th; and the third which is 
called the Oise-Marne salient, launched on 
May 27th. 

Between the attacks which developed these 
salients there were also some unsuccessful at- 
tacks of almost equal power. On March 28th 
there was a desperate struggle to capture Ar- 
ras, preceded by a bombardment as great as 
any during the whole offensive, but this at- 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 53 

tack was defeated with enormous losses to the 
German troops. A fourth phase of the Ger- 
man offensive took place on June 9th, on a 
front of twenty miles between Noyon and 




The Last Desperate Drives of the Germans 



Montdidier, which gained a few miles at an 
enormous cost. 

On July 15th came the last of the great of- 
fensives. It was a smash on a sixty-mile line 



54 THE WORLD WAR 

from Chateau-Thierry up the Marne, around 
Rheims, and then east to a few miles west of 
the Argonne forest. This offensive at the 
start made a penetration of from three to five 
miles, but was held firmly and much of the 
gain lost, through the counter attacks of the 
Allies. It was at this point that the Ameri- 
can troops first began to be seriously felt, and 
it was at this point that General Foch took up 
the story, and began the great series of Allied 
drives which were to crush the German power. 
But there had been many days of great anxi- 
ety before the turn of the tide. 

The objects of the German drives were 
doubtless more or less dependent upon their 
success. The first drive in Picardy, in the di- 
rection of Amiens, had apparently as its ob- 
ject to drive a wedge between the French and 
British and the object was so nearly attained 
that only the heroic work of General Carey 
saved the Allies from disaster. 

The Fifth British army, which had borne 
the brunt of the German attack, had found it- 
self almost crushed by the sheer weight of 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 55 

numbers. The whole line was broken up and 
it seemed as if the road was open to Amiens. 
French reinforcements could not come up in 
time; bridges could not be blown up because 
the engineers were all killed. Orders came to 
General Carey at two o'clock in the morning, 
March 26th, to hold the gap. He at once pro- 
ceeded to gather an extemporized army. 

Every available man was rounded up, among 
others a body of American engineers. Labor- 
ers, sappers, raw recruits as well as soldiers of 
every arm. There were plenty of machine 
guns, but few men knew how to handle them. 
With this scratch army in temporary trenches, 
he lay for six days, and as Lloyd George said, 
"They held the German army and closed that 
gap on the way to Amiens." 

During this fight General Carey rode along 
the lines shouting encouraging words to his 
hard-pressed men. He did not know whether 
he would get supplies of ammunition and pro- 
visions or not, but he stuck to it. Later on 
the regular troops arrived. The American 
engineers, who had been fighting, immediately 



56 THE WORLD WAR 

returned to their base, and resumed work lay- 
ing out trenches. General Rawlinson, Com- 
mander of the British army at that point, sent 
the commanding officer of the Americans en- 
gaged, the following letter : 

The army Commander wishes to record officially his 
appreciation of the excellent work your regiment has 
done in assisting the British army to resist the enemy's 
powerful offensive during the last ten days. I fully 
realize that it has been largely due to your assistance 
that the enemy has been checked, and I rely on you to 
assist us still further during the few days that are still 
to come before I shall be able to relieve you in the line. 
I consider your work in the line to be greatly enhanced 
by the fact that for six weeks previous to your taking 
your place in the front line your men had been working 
at such high pressure erecting heavy bridges on the 
Somme. My best congratulations and warm thanks to 
all. 

Rawlinson. 

The demoralization of General Gough's 
Fifth army, which had thus left an eight-mile 
gap on the left, and which had been saved at 
that point by General Carey, permitted also 
the opening of another gap between its right 
wing and the Sixth French army. Here Gen- 
eral Fayolle did with organized troops what 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 57 

Carey had done with his volunteers further 
north. The reason for the success of both 
Carey and Fayolle appears to have been that 
the German armies had been so thoroughly 
battered that they were unable to take advan- 
tage of the situation. Their regiments had 
been mixed up, their officers had been sepa- 
rated from their men in the rush of the attack, 
and before they could recover the opportunity 
was lost. 

The first days of April saw the end of the 
drive toward Amiens. The Germans claimed 
the capture of ninety thousand prisoners and 
one thousand three hundred guns. They had 
penetrated into the Allies' territory in some 
points a distance of thirty-five miles. Their 
new line extended southwest from Arras be- 
yond Albert to the west of Moreuil, which is 
about nine miles south of Amiens, and then 
went on west of Pierrepont and Montdidier, 
curving out at Noyon to the region of the 
Oise. 

The first part of April was a comparative 
calm, when suddenly there developed the sec- 



58 THE WORLD WAR 

ond drive of the German offensive. This drive 
was not so extensive as the first one, and its 
object appeared to be to break through the 
British forces in Flanders and reach the Chan- 
nel ports. It resulted in a salient embracing 
an area about three hundred and twenty- 
square miles, and the Germans claimed the 
capture of twenty thousand prisoners and two 
hundred guns. It was at this point that Gen- 
eral Haig issued his famous order in which he 
described the British armies as standing with 
their "backs to the wall." It read as follows: 

Three weeks ago today the enemy began his terrific 
attacks against us on a fifty-mile front. Its objects are 
to separate us from the French, to take the Channel 
ports, and to destroy the British army. In spite of 
throwing already one hundred and six divisions into the 
battle and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human 
life, he has yet made little progress toward his goals. 
We owe this to the determined fighting and self-sacrifice 
of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration 
which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all 
ranks of our army under the most trying circumstances. 
Many among us now are tired. To those I would say 
that victory will belong to the side which holds out the 
longest. The French army is moving rapidly and in 
great force to our support. There is no other course 
open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 59 

held to the last man. There must be no retiring. 
With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of 
our cause each one of us must fight to the end. The 
safety of our homes, and the freedom of mankind de- 
pend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this 
critical moment. 

The British Commander's order made the 
situation clear to the British people and to the 
world. The Germans had given up for the 
moment their attempt to divide the British and 
French armies, and were now attempting to 
seize the Channel ports, and the British were 
fighting with true British pluck with their 
"backs to the wall. ,, 

One can imagine the anxiety in the villages 
of Flanders where they watched the German 
advance and heard the terrible bombardment 
which was destroying their beautiful little 
cities, and threatening to put them under the 
dominion of the brutal conquerors of Belgium. 
Town after town fell to the enemy until at 
last the German attack began to weaken. 

Counter attacks on April 17th recaptured 
the villages of Wytschaete and Meteren. At 
other points German attacks were repulsed, 



60 THE WORLD WAR 

and the attack on the Lys had reached its 
limits. It had not only failed to reach the 
coast but it had not even reached so far as to 
force the evacuation of Ypres or to endanger 
Arras. On the contrary the Germans had 
paid for their advance by such terrible losses 
that the ground that they had gained meant 
almost nothing. They then made, on April 
30th, a vigorous endeavor to broaden the 
Amiens salient in the region of Hangard and 
Noyon. This attack also failed. 

On May 27th Ludendorff made his next 
move. This was in the south, and was pre- 
ceded by the most elaborate preparations over 
a forty-mile front. At first it met with great 
success. German troops from a point north- 
west of Rheims to Montdidier were moving ap- 
parently with the purpose of breaking the 
French lines and clearing the way for a drive 
to Paris. Consternation reigned among Al- 
lied observers as the Germans carried, appar- 
ently with ease, first the formidable Chemin 
des Dames, which was believed invulnerable, 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 61 

and then the south bank of the Aisne, with its 
great fortifications at Soissons. 

Criticism began to appear of General Foch, 
who was thought at first to have been taken by 
surprise. The Germans were using four hun- 
dred thousand of their best troops, and the 
greatest force of tanks, machine guns and 
poison-gas projectors which they had ever 
gathered. They captured over forty-five thou- 
sand prisoners and took four hundred guns. 
They penetrated thirty miles and gained six 
hundred and fifty square miles of territory, but 
they were held on the River Marne. 

It is now apparent that General Foch knew 
exactly what he was about. He might easily 
by sending in reinforcements, have put up the 
same desperate resistance to the German of- 
fensive which they were now meeting in other 
sectors. But he preferred to retreat and lead 
the enemy on to a position which would make 
them vulnerable to the great counter attack 
he was preparing for them on their flank. 
The Germans reached the Marne, but they 



62 THE WORLD WAR 

paid for it in the terrible losses which they 
incurred. 

The German line now from Montdidier, the 
extreme point of the Amiens salient, to 
Chateau-Thierry, the point of the new Marne 
salient, was in the form of a bow, and on June 
9th General Ludendorff attempted to 
straighten out the line. His new attack was 
made on a twenty-mile front between Mont- 
didier and Noyon in the direction of Com- 
piegne. This was another terrific drive and 
at first gained about seven miles. French 
counter attacks, however, not only held him 
in a vise but regained a distance of about one 
mile. This battle was probably the most dis- 
astrous one fought by the Germans during 
their whole offensive. Nearly four hundred 
thousand men were completely used up, with- 
out gaining the slightest strategic success. 

Then followed a period without battles of 
major importance, during which General Foch 
by periodic assaults on the Lys, the Somme, on 
the flanks of Montdidier and Soissons, on the 
Chateau-Thierry sector and southwest of 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 63 

Rheims, captured many important positions 
and kept the enemy in constant anxiety. 

During the great German offensives the 
Germans had lost at least five hundred thou- 
sand men, while the casualties of the Allies 
were barely one hundred and fifty thousand. 
The Germans also were beginning to lose their 
morale. They were finding that however 
great might be their efforts, however terrible 
might be their losses, they were still being con- 
stantly held. Their troops were now appar- 
ently made of inferior material, and included 
boys, old men and even convicts. 

The system of making attacks by means of 
shock troops was producing the inevitable re- 
sult. The shock regiments were composed of 
selected men, picked here and there, from the 
regular troops. Their selection had naturally 
weakened the regiments from which they were 
taken. After three months of great offen- 
sives these shock troops were now in great part 
destroyed, and the German lines were being 
held mainly by the inferior troops which had 
been left. Moreover, in other parts of the 



64 THE WORLD WAR 

i 

world, the allies of Germany were being beaten. 
In Italy and Albania and Macedonia there 
was danger. 

The Germans prepared for one more effort. 
On June 18th they had made a costly attempt 
to carry Rheims. On July 15th they made 
their last drive. Ludendorff took almost a 
month for preparation. He gathered together 
seventy divisions and great masses of muni- 
tions, and then drove in from Chateau-Thierry 
on a sixty-mile line up on the Marne, and then 
east to the Argonne forests. His line made a 
sort of semicircle around Rheims and then 
pushed south to the east and west of that 
fortress. 

Once again he had temporary success. 
West of Rheims he penetrated a distance of 
five miles, and on the first day, had crossed 
the Marne at Dormans, but was held sharply 
by Americans east of Chateau-Thierry. On 
the second day he made further gains, but with 
appalling losses. On the 17th he was still 
struggling on with minor successes but on 
July 18th the French and Americans launched 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 65 

the great counter-offensive from Chateau- 
Thierry along a twenty-five mile front, between 
the Marne and the Aisne. The Germans 
everywhere began their retreat and the war 
tide had turned. 

The German attack east of Rheims had been 
a failure from the start. The Allied forces re- 
tired about two miles and then held firm. The 
country there is flat and sandy and gave little 
shelter to the attacking forces which lost ter- 
ribly. In this sector, too, there were many 
American troops, who behaved with distin- 
guished bravery. 

By this time nearly seven hundred thousand 
men of the American army were on the battle 
line. They had been fighting here and there 
among the French and English but on June 
22d General March announced that five divi- 
sions of these troops had been transferred to 
the direct command of General Pershing as a 
nucleus for an American army. 

In glancing back at the great German 
drives which have now been described, one is 
impressed by the terrific character of the fight- 

5—5 



66 THE WORLD WAR 

ing. This struggle undoubtedly was the 
greatest exertion of military power in the his- 
tory of the world. Never before had such 
masses of munitions been used; never before 
had scientific knowledge been so drawn on in 
the service of war. Thousands of airplanes 
were patrolling the air, sometimes scouting, 
sometimes dropping bombs on hostile troops 
or on hostile stores, sometimes flying low, fir- 
ing their machine guns into the faces of march- 
ing troops. Thousands upon thousands of 
great guns were sending enormous projectiles, 
which made great pits wherever they fell. 
Swarms of machine guns were pouring their 
bullets like water from a hose upon the charg- 
ing soldiers. 

One of the most noticeable artillery develop- 
ments was the long-range gun which off and 
on during this period was bombarding Paris. 
This bombardment began on March 23d, when 
the nearest German line was more than sixty- 
two miles away. For a time the story was 
regarded as pure fiction, but it was soon estab- 
lished that the great nine-inch shells which 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 67 

were dropping into the city every twenty min- 
utes came from the forests of St. Gobain, seven 
miles back of the French trenches near Laon, 
and about seventy-five miles from Paris. This 
was another of those futile bits of frightful- 
ness in which the Germans reveled. Military 
advantage gained by such a gun was almost 
nothing, and the expense of every shot was out 
of all proportion to the damage inflicted. It 
only roused intense indignation and stirred the 
Allies to greater determination. The first 
day's casualties in Paris were ten killed and 
fifteen wounded. By the next day one would 
not have been able to tell from the Paris streets 
that such a bombardment was going on at all. 
The subway and surface cars were running, the 
streets were thronged and traffic was going on 
as usual. About two dozen shells were thrown 
into Paris every day, mainly in the Montmartre 
district, in a radius of about a mile. This 
seemed to show that the gun was immovable. 
On March 29th, however, a shell struck the 
church of St. Gervais during the Good Fri- 
day service, killing seventy-five persons, and 



68 THE WORLD WAR 

wounding ninety. Fifty-four of those killed 
were women. The church had been struck at 
the moment of the Elevation of the Host. 
This outrage aroused special indignation, and 
Pope Benedict sent a protest to Berlin. 

An examination of exploded shells indicated 
that the new German gun was less than nine 
inches in caliber, and that the projectiles, which 
weighed about two hundred pounds, contained 
two charges, in two chambers connected by a 
fuse which often exploded more than a min- 
ute apart. It took three minutes for each shell 
to travel to Paris and it was estimated that such 
a shell rose to a height of twenty miles from the 
earth. Three of these guns were used. One 
of these guns exploded on March 29th, killing 
a German lieutenant and nine men. The 
Kaiser was present when the gun was first 
used. It was said by American scientists that 
seismographs in the United States felt the 
shock of each discharge. On April 9th French 
aviators discovered the location of the new 
guns, and French artillery began to drop 
enormous shells weighing half a ton each near 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 69 

the German monsters. A few days later a 
French shell fell on the barrel of one of these 
guns and put it out of commission. Great 
craters were made around the other, interfering 
with its use, and toward the end of the period 
it was only occasionally that the remaining gun 
was fired, and no great damage resulted. 

Another feature of the great German drives 
was the tremendous destruction that accom- 
panied them. Not only were churches, public 
buildings, and private houses throughout al- 
most the whole district turned into ruin, but the 
very ground itself was plowed up into craters 
and shell holes, and the trees smashed into mere 
splinters. During the whole campaign poison 
gas of various kinds was used in immense quan- 
tities, and it was constantly necessary for the 
troops to wear gas masks. Sometimes after a 
town had been evacuated by the enemy it was 
so filled with gas that it was impossible for vic- 
torious troops to enter. One of the fiercest 
bombardments was that directed against the 
Portuguese during the fighting along the Lys. 
The enemy made a special attempt to crush the 



70 THE WORLD WAR 

Portuguese contingent which behaved with the 
utmost gallantry, in some cases fighting until 
their last man had been killed. 

It was the season of the year when the 
orchards were covered with blossoms and the 
fields with flowers, but the horrors of war de- 
stroyed the beauty of the Spring. In these 
battles men fought until they were completely 
exhausted and one could see troops stagger- 
ing as they walked and leaning on each other 
from pure exhaustion. 

These were days when wonders were per- 
formed by the Medical Departments of the Al- 
lied armies, and the work of the Red Cross was 
almost as important as the work of the soldiers. 
Relief for the wounded had to be undertaken 
and carried on on a mammoth scale. Many 
of the doctors, nurses, orderlies and ambulance 
men lost their lives while making efforts to 
rescue the wounded. 

These were days when the German leaders 
were filled with the pride of victory. They 
were talking now about a hard German peace. 



GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT 71 

On June 17th the German Kaiser celebrated 
the thirtieth anniversary of his accession to the 
throne. He talked no more of a war of self- 
defense, but declared the war to be the struggle 
of two world views wrestling with each other. 
"Either German principles of right, freedom, 
honor and morality must be upheld, or Anglo- 
Saxon principles with their idolatry of Mam- 
mon must be victorious." He sent congratu- 
lations to Field Marshal Von Hindenburg, to 
General Ludendorff and to the Crown Prince. 
Von Hindenburg assured the Kaiser of the un- 
swerving loyalty until death of Germany's 
sons at the front, and concluded "May our old 
motto ' Forward with God for King and 
Fatherland, for Kaiser and Empire' result in 
many years of peace being granted to your 
Majesty after our victorious return home." 

But the terrific attacks which the German 
Commanders directed upon the Americans at 
Chateau-Thierry and at other points upon the 
southern lines show well that they knew that 
there was another danger rising to confront 



72 THE WORLD WAR 

them ; that during their great drives a million 
and a half American soldiers had been learn- 
ing the art of war, and that every moment of 
delay meant a new danger. By the end of 
this period the Americans had arrived. 



CHAPTER V 

Chateau-Thierry, Field of Glory 

NOWHERE in American history may be 
found a more glorious record than that 
which crowned with laurel the American arms 
at Chateau- Thierry. Here the American 
Marines and divisions comprising both volun- 
teers and selected soldiers, were thrown before 
the German tide of invasion like a huge khaki- 
colored breakwater. Germany knew that a 
test of its empire had come. To break the 
wall of American might it threw into the van of 
the attack the Prussian Guard backed by the 
most formidable troops of the German and 
Austrian empires. The object was to put the 
fear of the Hun into the hearts of the Yankees, 
to overwhelm them, to drive straight through 
them as the prow of a battleship shears through 
a heavy sea. If America could be defeated, 
Germany's way to a speedy victory was at 

73 



74 THE WORLD WAR 

hand. If America held — well, that way lay 
disaster. 

And the Americans held. Not only did 
they hold out but they counter-attacked with 
such bloody consequences to the German army 
that Marshal Foch, seizing the psychological 
moment for his carefully prepared counter- 
offensive, gave the word for a general attack. 

With Chateau-Thierry and the Marne as a 
hinge, the clamp of the Allies closed upon the 
defeated Germans. From Switzerland to the 
North Sea the drive went forward, operating 
as huge pincers cutting like chilled steel 
through the Hindenburg and the Kriemhild 
lines. It was the beginning of autocracy's end, 
the end of Der Tag of which Germany had 
dreamed. 

The matchless Marines and the other Ameri- 
can troops suffered a loss that staggered Amer- 
ica. It was a loss, however, that was well 
worth while. The heroic young Americans 
who held the might of Germany helpless and 
finally rolled them back defeated from the field 
of battle, and who paid for that victory with 







1 


"Li* ■ 


H 


1 f ^- 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 75 

their lives, made certain the speedy end of 
the world's bloodiest war. 

The story of the American army's effective 
operations in France from Cantigny to the 
reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, is one long 
record of victories. To the glory of Ameri- 
can arms must be recorded the fact that at no 
time and at no place in the World War did 
the American forces retreat before the Ger- 
man hosts. 

In the latter days of May, 1918, the Allied 
forces in France seemed near defeat. The 
Germans were steadily driving toward Paris. 
They had swept over the Chemin des Dames 
and the papers from day to day were chroni- 
cling wonderful successes. The Chemin des 
Dames had been regarded as impregnable, but 
the Germans passed it apparently without the 
slightest difficulty. They were advancing on 
a forty-mile front and on May 28th had 
reached the Aisne, with the French and Brit- 
ish steadily falling back. The anxiety of the 
Allies throughout the world was indescribable. 
This was the great German "Victory Drive" 



76 THE WORLD WAR 

and each day registered a new Allied defeat. 
Newspaper headlines were almost despairing. 

On May 29th, however, in quiet type, under 
great headlines announcing a German gain of 
ten miles in which the Germans had taken 
twenty -five thousand prisoners and crossed two 
rivers, had captured Soissons, and were threat- 
ening Rheims, there appeared in American 
papers a quiet little despatch from General 
Pershing. It read as follows: 

"This morning in Picardy our troops at- 
tacked on a front of one and one-fourth miles, 
advanced our lines, and captured the village 
of Cantigny. We took two hundred prison- 
ers, and inflicted on the enemy severe losses 
in killed and wounded. Our casualties were 
relatively small. Hostile counter-attacks 
broke down under our fire." This was the first 
American offensive. 

The American troops had now been in Eu- 
rope almost a year. At first but a small force, 
they had been greeted in Paris and in Lon- 
don with tremendous enthusiasm. Up to this 
point they had done little or nothing, but the 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 77 

small force which passed through Paris in the 
summer of 1917 had been growing steadily. 
By this time the American army numbered 
more than eight hundred thousand men. They 
had been getting ready; in camps far behind 
the lines they had been trained, not only by 
their own officers, but by some of the greatest 
experts in the French and the British armies. 
Thousands of officers and men who, but a few 
months before, had been busily engaged in 
civilian pursuits, had now learned something 
of the art of war. They had been supplied 
with a splendid equipment, with great guns 
and with all the modern requirements of an 
up-to-date army. 

For some months, here and there, on the 
French and British lines, small detachments 
of American troops flanked on both sides by 
the Allied forces, had been learning the art of 
war. Here and there they had been under fire. 
At Cantigny itself they had resisted attack. 
On May 27th General Pershing had reported 
"In Picardy, after violent artillery prepara- 
tions, hostile infantry detachments succeeded in 



78 THE WORLD WAR 

penetrating our advance positions in two 
points. Our troops counter-attacked, com- 
pletely expelling the enemy and entering his 
lines." They had also been fighting that day 
in the Woevre sector where a raiding party had 
been repulsed. There had been other skirm- 
ishes, too, in which many Americans had won 
honors both from Great Britain and France. 
But the attack at Cantigny was the first dis- 
tinct American advance. 

The Americans penetrated the German posi- 
tions to the depth of nearly a mile. Their 
artillery completely smothered the Germans, 
and its whirr could be heard for many miles in 
the rear. Twelve French tanks supported the 
American infantry. The artillery prepara- 
tion lasted for one hour, and then the lines of 
Americans went over the top. A strong unit 
of flame throwers and engineers aided the 
Americans. The American barrage moved 
forward a hundred yards in two minutes and 
then a hundred yards in four minutes. The 
infantry followed with clock-like precision. 
Fierce hand-to-hand fighting occurred in 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 79 

Cantigny, which contained a large tunnel and 
a number of caves. The Americans hurled 
hand grenades like baseballs into these shel- 
ters. 

The attack had been carefully planned and 
was rehearsed by the infantry with the tanks. 
In every detail it was under the direction of 
the Superior French Command, to whom much 
of the credit for its success was due. The news 
of the American success created general satis- 
faction among the French and English troops. 
The operation, of course, was not one of the 
very greatest importance. It was a sort of 
an experiment, but coming as it did, in the mid- 
dle of the great German Drive, it was ominous. 
America had arrived. 

On May 30th General Pershing announced 
the complete repulse of further eneni} r attacks 
from the new American positions near Can- 
tigny. This time he says: "There was con- 
siderable shelling with gas, but the results ob- 
tained were very small. The attempt was a 
complete failure. Our casualties were very 
light. We have consolidated our positions." 



80 THE WORLD WAR 

The London Evening News commenting on 
this fact says: "Bravo the young Americans! 
Nothing in today's battle narrative from the 
front is more exhilarating than the account 
of their fight at Cantigny. It was clean cut 
from beginning to end, like one of their coun- 
trymen's short stories, and the short story of 
Cantigny is going to expand into a full-length 
novel which will write the doom of the Kaiser 
and Kaiserism. Cantigny will one day be re- 
peated a thousand fold." 

The Germans, in reporting this fight, 
avoided mention of the fact that the operation 
had been conducted by American troops. 
This seemed to indicate that they feared the 
moral effect of such an admission in Germany. 
Up to this time, with the exception of small 
brigades, the American army had been held as 
a reserve. After the Cantigny fight they were 
hurried to the front. The main point to which 
they were sent at first was Chateau-Thierry, 
north of the Marne, the nearest point to Paris 
reached by the enemy. There, at the very 
critical point of the great German Drive, they 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 81 

not only checked the enemy but, by a dashing 
attack, threw him back. 

This may be said to be the turning point in 
the whole war. It not only stopped the Ger- 
man Drive at this point, but it gave new cour- 
age to the Allies and took the heart out of the 
Germans. The troops were rushed to the bat- 
tle front at Thierry, arriving on Saturday, 
June 1st. They entered the battle enthusi- 
astically, almost immediately after they had 
arrived. A despatch from Picardy says: 
"On their way to the battle lines they were 
cheered by the crowds in the villages through 
which they passed; their victorious stand with 
their gallant French Allies, so soon after en- 
tering the line, has electrified all France." 

General Pershing's terse account of what 
happened reads as follows: "In the fighting 
northwest of Chateau-Thierry our troops broke 
up an attempt of the enemy to advance to the 
south through Veuilly Woods, and by a coun- 
ter-attack drove him back to the north of the 
woods." 

The American troops had gone into the ac- 



82 THE WORLD WAR 

tion only an hour or so after their arrival on the 
banks of the River Marne. Scarcely had they 
alighted from their motor trucks when they 
were ordered into Chateau-Thierry with a 
battalion of French-Colonial troops. The 




Where the "Yanks" Fought the Second Battle or the Marne 

enemy were launching a savage drive, and at 
first succeeded in driving the Americans out 
of the woods of Veuilly-la-Poterie. But the 
Americans at once counter-attacked, driving 
their opponents from their position, and re- 
gaining possession of the woods. On the same 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 83 

day the Germans launched an attack of shock 
troops, attempting to gain a passage across 
the Marne at Jaulgonne. They obtained a 
footing on the southern bank but another 
American counter attack forced them back 
across the river. The American soldiers were 
fighting with wonderful spirit, and the French 
papers were filled with praise of their work. 
As they came up to go into the line they were 
singing, and they charged, cheering. 

On June 6th came a climax of the American 
fighting. It was the attack of the American 
Marines in the direction of Torcy. This 
gained more than two miles over a two and a 
half mile front. On the next day the ad- 
vance continued over a front of nearly six 
miles, and during the night the Americans cap- 
tured Bouresches and entered Torcy. 

The fighting at Torcy was characteristically 
American; the Marines advanced yelling like 
Indians, using bayonet and rifle. From 
Torcy the Marines set forward and took 
strong ground on either side of Belleau Wood. 
They had reached all the objectives and pushed 



84 THE WORLD WAR 

beyond them. The Germans were on the run, 
and surrendering right and left to the Ameri- 
cans. The attack by the Marines forestalled 
an attack by the enemy. German reports 
now noticed the Americans. Their report on 
June 9th referring to this attack, says: 
"Americans who attempted to attack north- 
west of Chateau-Thierry were driven back be- 
yond their positions of departure with heavy 
losses and prisoners were captured." The 
Americans had lost heavily, and the hospitals 
were filled with their wounded, but the thor- 
ough American organization was giving the 
wounded every care, and the Americans were 
still moving forward. 

On June the 10th, another attack was made 
on the German lines in the Belleau Wood, 
which penetrated for about two-thirds of a 
mile, leaving the Germans in possession of 
only the northern fringe of the Wood. On 
June 11th the official statement of the French 
War Office declared: "South of the Ourcq 
River the American troops this morning bril- 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 85 

liantly captured Belleau Wood, and took three 
hundred prisoners." 

Belleau Wood had been considered an al- 
most impregnable position, but the valiant 
fighting of the American Marines had carried 
them past it. Fighting here was not merely 
a series of exciting engagements, but an im- 
portant action, which may have turned, and 
very probably did turn, the whole tide of bat- 
tle. The Americans put three German di- 
visions out of business, and caused a change 
in the German plans, by preventing an ex- 
tending movement to Meaux, which was the 
German objective. 

From this time on the confidence shown in 
all reports from the Allies in France was 
strengthened. They had found that the 
Americans were all that they had hoped for, 
and they were sure now that they could hold 
on until the full American strength could be 
brought to bear. General Pershing himself 
was full of optimism and his fine example 
stimulated his troops. From this time on all 



86 THE WORLD WAR 

dispatches show that the Americans were 
more and more getting in the game. Re- 
peated German attacks against their forces, 
on the Belleau-Eouresches line were repulsed, 
in spite of the fact that crack German divisions, 
who had been picked especially to punish them, 
had been found on their front. It was later 
found that these divisions had been suddenly- 
ordered to that point "in order to prevent at 
all costs the Americans being able to achieve 
success." The German High Command was 
apparently anxious to prevent American suc- 
cess from stimulating the morale of the Allied 
army. 

During the rest of the summer the Ameri- 
cans took an active part in Foch's great of- 
fensive which ultimately crushed the German 
army. They were heard from at widely di- 
vergent points: in Alsace, about Chateau- 
Thierry, at Montdidier, and in the British lines. 

Most of the fighting during June indicated 
a slow advance at Chateau-Thierry. On June 
19th the Americans crossed the Marne, near 
that city. But Chateau-Thierry itself was not 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 87 

captured until the middle of July. On June 
29th they participated in a raid near Mont- 
didier and on July 2nd captured Vaux. In 
the week of July 4th news came of American 
success in the Vosges. On July 18th they ad- 
vanced close to Soissons. On August 3rd the 
Americans captured Fismes, and then for 
nearly a month made little actual progress, 
though bitter fighting went on in the country 
around Fismes and near Soissons. On Au- 
gust 29th after a furious battle they captured 
the plain of Juvigny, north of Soissons. 

In all these battles the Americans were doing 
their part at difficult points, during the great 
French drive which was clearing out the Marne 
salient. 

On the 12th of September, the first Ameri- 
can army, assisted by certain French units, and 
under the direct command of General Persh- 
ing, launched an attack against the St. Mihiel 
salient. This was the most important opera- 
tion of the American troops in the Great War. 
It was a complete success. September 12th 
was the fourth anniversary of the establishment 



88 THE WORLD WAR 

of the salient, which reached out from the Ger- 
man line in the direction of Verdun. 

The attack was fighting on a grand scale, 
and that such an operation should be intrusted 
to the American army indicated an entirely 
new phase of America's participation in the 
war. It was preceded by a barrage lasting 
four hours. The German troops, though 
probably suspecting that such an attack was 
coming, were nevertheless surprised. The 
American attack was on the southern leg of the 
salient along a distance of twelve miles. The 
French attacked on the western side from a 
front of eight miles. Each attack was emi- 
nently successful. On the southern front the 
Americans reached their first objectives at 
some points an hour ahead of schedule time. 
Thiaucourt was captured early in the drive; 
later the Americans gained possession of Non- 
sard, Pannes, and Bouillonville. 

At first the resistance of the Germans, with- 
out being tame, was not actually stiff, and the 
doughboys were able to sweep toward the sec- 
ond line of any position without difficulty. 



90 THE WORLD WAR 

There, however, the Germans began to defend 
themselves sharply, which delayed, but did not 
stop the American advance. The attack was 
made in two waves and carried the American 
forces a distance of about five miles. 

The next day the attack continued, and 
General Pershing's dispatch stated: "In the 
St. Mihiel sector we have achieved further suc- 
cesses. The junction of our troops advancing 
from the south of the sector with those advanc- 
ing from the west has given us possession of 
the whole salient to points twelve miles north- 
east of St. Mihiel, and has resulted in the cap- 
ture of many prisoners. Forced back by our 
steady advance the enemy is retiring, and is 
destroying large quantities of material as he 
goes. The number of prisoners counted has 
risen to 13,300. Our line now includes Herbe- 
ville, Thillet, Hattonville, St. Benoit, Xammes, 
Jaulny, Thiaucourt and Vieville." 

The salient was wiped out, and the St. Mihiel 
front reduced from forty to twenty miles. 

The first American regiment stationed in the 
St. Mihiel sector was the 370th Infantry, for- 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 91 

merly the Eighth Illinois, a Negro regiment 
officered entirely by soldiers of that race. This 
regiment was one of the three that occupied a 
sector at Verdun when a penetration there by 
the Germans would have been disastrous to the 
Allied cause. 

The St. Mihiel salient had no great military 
value to the Germans, and was probably held 
by them from a sentimental motive. It repre- 
sented the desperate efforts made by the Crown 
Prince in his early drive against Verdun. Its 
destruction, however, was of great importance 
to the French. It was not only a removal of 
a menace to the French citizens of Verdun, but 
it released the French armies at that point for 
active offensive operation. It also liberated 
the railway line from Verdun to Nancy, which 
was of the utmost value to General Pershing 
and the French armies to his left. It also later 
developed that the French command regarded 
the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient as the 
corner stone of a great encircling movement 
aimed at the German fortress of Metz. The 
moral effect of its reduction was also notable 



92 THE WORLD WAR 

as it was one more sign of the weakening of the 
Germans. 

History usually concerns itself with the 
deeds of humanity in the mass and with the 
leaders of these masses. It is eminently fit- 
ting, however, that this history should record 
the impressions made upon the mind of an 
American soldier by a modern battle. The 
United States Government singled out of all 
the letters received from the front, that written 
by Major Robert L. Denig, of Philadelphia, 
to his wife. The letter is now part of the 
archives of the War Department, and occupies 
the highest place of literary honor in the records 
of the Marines. It describes the operation 
against the Germans on the Marne on July 
18th, 1918. This was the counter-attack led 
by the Marines which broke the back of the 
German invasion. Major Denig wrote : 

The day before we left for this big push we had a 
most interesting fight between a fleet of German planes 
and a French observation balloon, right over our heads. 
We saw five planes circle over our town, then put on, 
what we thought afterwards, a sham fight. One of 
them, after many fancy stunts, headed right for the bal- 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 93 

loon. They were all painted with our colors except 
one. This one went near the balloon. One kept right 
on. The other four shot the balloon up with incendiary 
bullets. The observers jumped into their parachutes 
just as the outfit went up in a mass of flame. 

The next day we took our positions at various places 
to wait for camions that were to take us somewhere in 
France, when or for what purpose we did not know. 
Wass passed me at the head of his company — we made a 
date for a party on our next leave. He was looking 
fine and was as happy as could be. Then Hunt, Keyser 
and a heap of others went by. I have the battalion and 
Holcomb the regiment. Our turn to en-buss did not 
come until near midnight. 

We at last got under way after a few big "sea bags" 
had hit nearby. Wilmer and I led in a touring car. We 
went at a good clip and nearly got ditched in a couple 
of new shell holes. Shells were falling fast by now, and 
as the tenth truck went under the bridge a big one landed 
near with a crash, and wounded the two drivers, killed 
two marines and wounded five more. We did not know 
at the time, and did not notice anything wrong until we 
came to a crossroad when we found we had only eleven 
cars all told. We found the rest of the convoy after a 
hunt, but even then were not told of the loss, and did 
not find it out until the next day. 

We were finally, after twelve hours' ride, dumped in 
a big field and after a few hours' rest started our march. 
It was hot as Hades and we had had nothing to eat 
since the day before. We at last entered a forest; 
troops seemed to converge on it from all points. We 
marched some six miles in the forest, a finer one I have 



94 THE WORLD WAR 

never seen — deer would scamper ahead and we could 
have eaten one raw. At 10 that night without food, we 
lay down in a pouring rain to sleep. Troops of all 
kinds passed us in the night — a shadowy stream, over a 
half-million men. Some French officers told us that 
they had never seen such concentration since Verdun, if 
then. 

The next day, the 18th of July, we marched ahead 
through a jam of troops, trucks, etc., and came at last to 
a ration dump where we fell to and ate our heads off 
for the first time in nearly two days. When we left 
there, the men had bread stuck on their bayonets. I 
lugged a ham. All were loaded down. 

Here I passed one of Wass* lieutenants with his hand 
wounded. He was pleased as Punch and told us the 
drive was on, the first we knew of it. I then passed a 
few men of Hunt's company, bringing prisoners to the 
rear. They had a colonel and his staff. They were well 
dressed, cleaned and polished, but mighty glum looking. 

We finally stopped at the far end of the forest near a 
dressing station, where Holcomb again took command. 
This station had been a big fine stone farm but was now 
a complete ruin — wounded and dead lay all about. Joe 
Murray came by with his head all done up — his helmet 
had saved him. The lines had gone on ahead so we 
were quite safe. Had a fine aero battle right over us. 
The stunts that those planes did cannot be described by 
me. 

Late in the afternoon we advanced again. Our route 
lay over an open field covered with dead. 

We lay down on a hillside for the night near some 
captured German guns, and until dark I watched the 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 95 

cavalry — some four thousand, come up and take posi- 
tions. 

At 3.30 the next morning Sitz woke me up and said 
we were to attack. The regiment was soon under way 
and we picked our way under cover of a gas infested 
valley to a town where we got our final instructions and 
left our packs. I wished Sumner good luck and parted. 

We formed up in a sunken road on two sides of a 
valley that was perpendicular to the enemy's front; 
Hughes right, Holcomb left, Sibley support. We now 
began to get a few wounded; one man with ashen face 
came charging to the rear with shell shock. He shook 
all over, foamed at the mouth, could not speak. I put 
him under a tent, and he acted as if he had a fit. 

I heard Overton call to one of his friends to send a 
certain pin to his mother if he should get hit. 

At 8.30 we jumped off with a line of tanks in the lead. 
For two "kilos" the four lines of Marines were as 
straight as a die, and their advance over the open plain 
in the bright sunlight was a picture I shall never forget. 
The fire got hotter and hotter, men fell, bullets sung, 
shells whizzed-banged and the dust of battle got thick. 
Overton was hit by a big piece of shell and fell. After- 
wards I heard he was hit in the heart, so his death was 
without pain. He was buried that night and the pin 
found. 

A man near me was cut in two. Others when hit 
would stand, it seemed, an hour, then fall in a heap. I 
yelled to Wilmer that each gun in the barrage worked 
from right to left, then a rabbit ran ahead and I watched 
him wondering if he would get hit. Good rabbit — it 
took my mind off the carnage. Looked for Hughes way 



96 THE WORLD WAR 

over to the right; told Wilmer that I had a hundred dol- 
lars and be sure to get it. You think all kinds of things. 

About sixty Germans jumped out of a trench and 
tried to surrender, but their machine guns opened up, 
we fired back, they ran and our left company after 
them. That made a gap that had to be filled, so Sibley 
advanced one of his to do the job, then a shell lit in a 
machine-gun crew of ours and cleaned it out completely. 

At 10.30 we dug in — the attack just died out. I 
found a hole or old trench and when I was flat on my 
back I got some protection. Holcomb was next me; 
Wilmer some way off. We then tried to get reports. 
Two companies we never could get in touch with. Lloyd 
came in and reported he was holding some trenches near 
a mill with six men. Cates, with his trousers blown off, 
said he had sixteen men of various companies; another 
officer on the right reported he had and could see forty 
men, all told. That, with the headquarters, was all we 
could find out about the battalion of nearly 800. Of 
the twenty company officers who went in, three came out, 
and one, Cates, was slightly wounded. 

From then on to about 8 p. m. life was a chance and 
mighty uncomfortable. It was hot as a furnace, no 
water, and they had our range to a "T." Three men 
lying in a shallow trench near me were blown to bits. 

I went to the left of the line and found eight wounded 
men in a shell hole. I went back to Cates' hole and 
three shells landed near them. We thought they were 
killed, but they were not hit. You could hear men call- 
ing for help in the wheat fields. Their cries would get 
weaker and weaker and die out. The German planes 
were thick in the air; they were in groups of from three 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 97 

to twenty. They would look us over and then we 
would get a pounding. One of our planes got shot 
down; he fell about a thousand feet, like an arrow, and 
hit in the field back of us. The tank exploded and 
nothing was left. 

We had a machine gun officer with us and at six a 
runner came up and reported that Sumner was killed. 
He commanded the machine-gun company with us. He 
was hit early in the fight by a bullet, I hear; I can get 
no details. At the start he remarked: "This looks 
easy — they do not seem to have much art." Hughes' 
headquarters were all shot up. Turner lost a leg. 

Well, we just lay there all through the hot afternoon. 

It was great — a shell would land near by and you 
would bounce in your hole. 

As twilight came, we sent out water parties for the 
relief of the. wounded. Then we wondered if we would 
get relieved. At 9 o'clock we got a message congratu- 
lating us and saying the Algerians would take over at 
midnight. We then began to collect our wounded. 
Some had been evacuated during the day, but at that, we 
soon had about twenty on the field near us. A man 
who had been blinded wanted me to hold his hand. 
Another, wounded in the back, wanted his head patted, 
and so it went; one man got up on his hands and knees. 
I asked him what he wanted. He said, "Look at the 
full moon," then fell dead. I had him buried, and all 
the rest I could find. 

All the time bullets sung and we prayed that shell- 
ing would not start until we had our wounded on top. 

The Algerians came up at midnight and we pushed 
out. They went over at daybreak and got all shot up. 
5—7 



98 THE WORLD WAR 

We made the relief under German flares and the light 
from a burning town. 

We went out as we came, through the gulley and 
town, the latter by now all in ruins. The place was full 
of gas, so we had to wear our masks. We pushed on to 
the forest and fell down in our tracks and slept all day. 
That afternoon a German plane got a balloon and the 
observer jumped and landed in a high tree. It was some 
job getting him down. The wind came up and we had 
to dodge falling trees and branches. As it was, we lost 
two killed and one wounded from that cause. 

That night the Germans shelled us and got three killed 
and seventeen wounded. We moved a bit further back 
to the crossroad and after burying a few Germans, 
some of whom showed signs of having been wounded 
before, we settled down to a short stay. 

It looked like rain, and so Wilmer and I went to an 
old dressing station to salvage some cover. W T e collected 
a lot of bloody shelter halves and ponchos that had 
been tied to poles to make stretchers, and were about to 
go, when we stopped to look at a new grave. A rude 
cross made of two slats from a box had written on it: 

"Lester S. Wass, Captain U. S. Marines, July 18, 
1918." 

The old crowd at St. Nazaire and Bordeaux, Wass 
and Sumner killed, Baston and Hunt wounded, the latter 
on the 18th, a clean wound, I hear, through the left 
shoulder. We then moved further to the rear and 
camped for the night. Dunlap came to look us over. 
His car was driven by a sailor who got out to talk to a 
few of the marines, when one of the latter yelled out, 
"Hey, fellows! Anyone want to see a real live gob, 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 99 

right this way." The gob held a regular reception. A 
carrier pigeon perched on a tree with a message. We 
decided to shoot him. It was then quite dark, so the 
shot missed. I then heard the following as I tried to 
sleep: "Hell; he only turned round;" "Send up a 
flare;" "Call for a barrage," etc. The next day further 
to the rear still, a Ford was towed by with its front 
wheels on a truck. 

We are now back in a town for some rest and to lick 
our wounds. 

As I rode down the battalion, where once companies 
250 strong used to march, now you see fifty men, with a 
kid second lieutenant in command; one company com- 
mander is not yet twenty-one. 

After the last attack I cashed in the gold you gave 
me and sent it home along with my back pay. I have 
no idea of being "bumped off" with money on my per- 
son, as if you fall into the enemy's hands you are first 
robbed, then buried perhaps, but the first is sure. 

Baston, the lieutenant that went to Quantico with 
father and myself, and of whom father took some pic- 
tures, was wounded in both legs in the Bois de Belleau. 
It was some time before he was evacuated and gas gan- 
grene set in. He nearly lost his legs, I am told, but is 
coming out O. K. Hunt was wounded in the last at- 
tack, got his wounds fixed up and went back again till 
he had to be sent out. Coffenburg was hit in the hand, 
— all near him were killed. Talbot was hit twice, but is 
about again. That accounts for all the officers in the 
company that I brought over. In the first fight 103 of 
the men in that outfit were killed or wounded. The sec- 
ond fight must have about cleaned out the old crowd. 



100 THE WORLD WAR 

The tanks, as they crushed their way through the 
wet, gray forest looked to me like beasts of the pre- 
stone age. 

In the afternoon as I lay on my back in a hole that I 
dug deeper, the dark gray German planes with their sin- 
ister black crosses, looked like Death hovering above. 
They were for many. Sumner, for one. He was always 
saying, "Denig, let's go ashore !" Then here was Wass, 
whom I usually took dinner with — dead, too. Sumner, 
Wass, Baston and Hunt — the old crowd that stuck to- 
gether; two dead, one may never be any good any more; 
Hunt, I hope, will be as good as ever. 

The officers mentioned in Major Denig's let- 
ter, with their addresses and next of kin, are: 

Lieutenant Colonel Berton W. Sibley; Har- 
riet E. Sibley, mother; Essex Junction, Vt. 

First Lieutenant Clifton B. Gates; Mrs. 
Willis J. Cates, mother; Tiptonville, Tenn. 

First Lieutenant Horace Talbot, no next of 
kin; Woonsocket, R. I. 

Captain Arthur H. Turner; Charles S. 
Turner, father; 188 West River St., Wilkes- 
Barre, Pa. 

Captain Bailey Metcalf Coffenberg; Mrs. 
Elizabeth Coffenberg; 30 Jackson St., Staten 
Island, N. Y. 



CHATEAU-THIERRY 101 

Captain Albert Preston Baston; Mrs. Ora 
Z. Baston, mother; Pleasant Avenue, St. Louis 
Park, Minn. 

Captain Lester Sherwood Wass; L. A. 
Wass, father; Gloucester, Mass. 

Captain Allen M. Sumner; Mrs. Mary M. 
Sumner, wife; 1824 S Street, N. W., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Holcomb ; Mrs. 
Thomas Holcomb, wife; 1535 New Hampshire 
Avenue, Washington, D. C. 

Second Lieutenant John Laury Hunt ; Etta 
Newman, sister; Gillet, Texas. 

Captain Walter H. Sitz; Emil H. Sitz, 
father; Davenport, Iowa. 

First Lieutenant John W. Overton, son of 
J. M. Overton, 901 Stahlman Building, Nash- 
ville, Tenn. 

Major Egbert T. Lloyd; Mrs. E. T. Lloyd, 
wife; 4900 Cedar Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Major Ralph S. Keyser; Charles E. Keyser, 
father ; Thoroughfare, Va. 

Captain Pere Wilmer; Mrs. Alice Emory 
Wilmer, mother ; Centerville, Md. 



102 THE WORLD WAR 

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Hughes; Mrs. 
A. J. Hughes, wife, care of Rear Admiral 
William Parks; Post Office Building, Phila- 
delphia, Pa. 

Lieutenant Overton was the famous Yale 
athlete, the intercollegiate one-mile champion. 



CHAPTER VI 

England and France Strike in the North 

UP to July 18, 1918, the Allied armies in 
France had been steadily on the defen- 
sive, but on that date the tide turned. Gen- 
eral Foch, who had been yielding territory for 
several months in the great German drives, 
now assumed the offensive himself and began 
the series of great drives which was to crush the 
German power and drive the enemy in defeat 
headlong from France. 

The first of these great blow's was the one 
which began with the appearance of the Amer- 
icans at Chateau-Thierry. The Germans had 
formed a huge salient whose eastern extremity 
lay near Rheims, and its western extremity 
west of Soissons. It was like a great pocket 
reaching down in the direction of Paris from 
those two points. Against this salient the 

103 



104 THE WORLD WAR 

French and Americans had directed a tremen- 
dous thrust. The Germans resisted with des- 
peration. It was the turning point of the war, 
but they were compelled to yield* Town after 
town was regained by the French and Ameri- 
can troops, until, by August 5th, the Crown 
Prince had been driven from the Marne to the 
Vesle, and the salient had been completely 
obliterated. 

On August 7th General Foch delivered his 
second blow. During the fighting on the 
Marne it had often been wondered by those 
who we v e observing the great French general's 
strategy, why the British seemed to make no 
move. Occasionally there had been reports of 
minor assaults, either on the Lys salient, far 
north, or on the Somme and Montdidier sec- 
tors, lying between. It had not been noticed 
that in these minor assaults the English had 
been obtaining positions of strategic impor- 
tance, and that they were steadily getting 
ready for an English offensive. 

But their time had now come, and on Au- 
gust 7th the armies of Sir Douglas Haig began 



IN THE NORTH 105 

an attack against the armies of Prince Rup- 
precht on the Lys salient. This was followed, 
on August 8th, by another still greater Allied 
advance in Picardy, between Albert and Mont- 
didier. 

Both of these attacks met with notable suc- 
cess. On the Lys salient the English pene- 
trated a distance of one thousand yards over a 
four-mile front, and followed up this advance 
by persistent attacks which led to the ^occu- 
pation, on August 19th, of Merville, and on 
August 31st, of Mont Kemmel. On this front 
the Germans had weakened their strength by 
withdrawing troops to aid other parts of their 
front, and the British were constantly taking 
advantage of this weakening. 

The Germans had found this salient a fail- 
ure. It had failed to attain its objective, the 
flanking of the Lens line south. They there- 
fore were steadily retreating without any in- 
tention other than to extricate themselves from 
positions of no value, in the most economical 
manner. The quick operations of the British, 
however, led to the capture of many prisoners 



106 THE WORLD WAR 

and a number of machine guns and trench 
mortars. 

The English offensive in Picardy was a more 
serious matter, and from some points of view 
was the greatest offensive in the war. The 
Allied front had been prepared for offensive 
operations by minor attacks which had secured 
for the Allied troops dominating positions. 
The attack was a surprise attack. The Ger- 
mans were expecting local attacks but not a 
movement of this magnitude. The surprise 
was increased because it was made through a 
heavy mist which prevented observation. It 
was preceded by tremendous artillery fire 
which lasted for four minutes, and which was 
followed by the charge of infantry and tanks. 
The German artillery hardly replied at all, and 
only the resistance of a few rifles and machine 
guns fired vaguely through the fog met the 
charging troops. 

The attack was on a twenty-five-mile front 
and on the first day gained seven miles, cap- 
tured seven thousand men and a hundred guns. 
On the following day there was an advance of 



IN THE NORTH 107 

about five miles and seventeen thousand more 
prisoners were captured. 

The Germans were now retiring in great 
haste, blowing up ammunition dumps and 
abandoning an enormous quantity of stores of 
all kinds. The English were using cavalry 
and airplanes, which were flying low over the 
field and throwing the German troops into con- 
fusion. Over three hundred guns, including 
many of heavy caliber, were captured. The 
ground had been plowed up by shells and 
thousands of bodies of men and horses were 
found lying where they fell. A feature of the 
attack was the swift whippet tanks which ad- 
vanced far ahead of the infantry lines. 

In the French official report occurred the fol- 
lowing statement: 

"The brilliant operation which we, in con- 
cert with British troops, executed yesterday 
has been a surprise for the enemy. As oc- 
curred in the offensive of July 18th the soldiers 
of General Debeney have captured enemy sol- 
diers engaged in the peaceful pursuit of har- 
vesting the fields behind the German lines." 



108 THE WORLD WAR 

By August 10th the Germans had fallen 
back to a line running through Chaulnes and 
Roye. Montdidier had been captured, and 
eleven German divisions had been smashed. 
By August 12th the number of prisoners was 
40,000, and by the 18th the Allied front was 
almost in the same line as it was in the summer 
of 1916, before the battle of the Somme. 

The next step was to capture Bapaume and 
Peronne. The French, on August 19th, cap- 
tured the Lassigny Massif, and continued to 
press on their attack. Noyon fell on the 29th, 
Hoye on the 27th, Chaulnes on the 29th. Fur- 
ther north the British had captured Albert, and 
on the 29th occupied Bapaume. On Septem- 
ber 1st they took Peronne with two thousand 
prisoners. 

The advance still continued, and the German 
weakness was becoming more and more appar- 
ent. On September 6th the whole Allied line 
swept forward, with an average penetration of 
eight miles. Chauny was captured and the 
fortress of Ham. On September 17th the 
British were close to St. Quentin and the 



IN THE NORTH 109 

French in their own old intrenchments before 
La Fere. On September 18th a surprise ad- 
vance over a twenty-two-mile front crossed the 
Hindenburg line at two points north of St. 
Quentin, Villeret and from Pontru to Hollom. 

The first and third British armies, a little 
further to the north, were moving toward 
Cambrai and Douai, threatening not only them, 
but to get in the rear of Lens. This force pro- 
ceeded up the Albert-Bapaume highway, and 
on August 27th captured a considerable por- 
tion of the Hindenburg line. On the 80th they 
reached Bullecourt and on September 2d 
crossed the Drocourt Queant line on a six- 
mile front. This was the famous switch line, 
meant to supplement the Hindenburg line and 
its capture meant the complete overthrow of 
the German intrenched positions at this point. 

The Germans retreated hastily to the Canal 
du Nord, and on September 3d Queant was 
captured by an advance on a twenty-mile 
front, along with ten thousand prisoners. The 
Allied forces were moving steadily forward. 
On September 18th the British reached the 



110 THE WORLD WAR 

defenses of Cambrai and were encircling the 
city of St. Quentin. On October 3d the ad- 
vance upon Cambrai forced the Germans to 
evacuate the Lens coal fields, and on October 
9th another advance over a thirty-mile front 
enabled the Allies to occupy Cambrai and St. 
Quentin. On the 11th they had reached the 
suburbs of Douai. By this time the whole of 
the Picardy salient had been wiped out. 

The preceding summary of this great move- 
ment gives little idea of the tremendous strug- 
gle which had gone on during these two critical 
months, and hardly does more than suggest the 
tremendous importance of the British opera- 
tions. The Hindenburg line was like a great 
fortification, and for more than a year had been 
regarded as impregnable. At Bullecourt 
there were two main lines. One hundred and 
twenty-five yards in front of the first line was 
a belt of wire twenty-five feet broad, so thick 
that it could not be seen through. The line 
itself contained double machine-gun emplace- 
ments of ferro-concrete, one hundred and 
twenty-five yards apart, with lesser emplace- 



IN THE NORTH 111 

merits between them. More belts of wire pro- 
tected the support line. Here a continuous 
tunnel had been constructed at a depth of over 
forty feet. Every thirty-five yards there were 
exits with flights of forty-five steps. The 
tunnels were roofed and lined and bottomed 
with heavy timber, and numerous rooms 
branched of?. They were lighted by elec- 
tricity. Large nine-inch trench mortars stood 
at the traverses and strong machine-gun posi- 
tions covered the line from behind. 

The Hindenburg line was really only one of 
a series of twenty lines, each connected with 
the others by communicating trenches. The 
main lines were solid concrete, separated by an 
unending vista of wire entanglements. At 
points this barrier of barbed wire extended in 
solid formation for ten miles. This tremen- 
dous system of defenses was originally called 
by the Germans the Siegfried line, and in the 
spring of 1917 they found it wise, at points 
where a strong offensive was expected, to fall 
back to it for protection. It had been their 
hope that it would prove an impassable barrier 



112 THE WORLD WAR 

to the Allied troops, but now it had been 
broken, and the moral effect of the British suc- 
cess was even greater than the material. 

One of the most noticeable results of the 
British advance had been the capture of Lens. 
It had been captured without a fight, because 
of the British threat upon its rear, but its cap- 
ture was of tremendous importance. Lens 
had been the scene of bitter fighting in the lat- 
ter part of August, 1917, when the Canadians 
had specially distinguished themselves. This 
city had been heavily fortified by the Germans 
who had recognized its importance as being the 
center of the great Lens coal fields, and they 
had never given it up. It had sometimes been 
described as the strongest single position that 
had ever confronted the Allies on the western 
front. It had been made a sort of citadel of 
reinforced concrete. Even the courage and 
power of the Canadians had only given them 
possession of some of its suburbs. Between 
these suburbs and the concrete citadel were the 
coal pits, with their fathomless depths of ages 
and the mysteries of kultural strategy. The 



IN THE NORTH 113 

struggle became a succession of avalanches of 
gas, burning oil, rifle and machine-gun fire. 
Both sides lost terrifically, but the Germans 
had held the town. Now it was given up with- 
out a blow and its great coal fields were once 
more in possession of the French. Before re- 
treating the Germans showed their usual de- 
structive energy and the mines were found 
flooded as a result of consistent and scientific 
use of dynamite. 

The recapture of Lens was cheering news 
in Paris. Not the least of the many sufferings 
of the French during the last two years of the 
war was that which came from the scarcity of 
coal. Indeed, more than once during those 
two winters coal could not be obtained at any 
price. These periods unfortunately came in 
the latter part of the winter, and it happened 
they were unusual periods of intense cold. 
Thousands of people stayed in bed all day in 
order to keep warm. The capture of Lens, 
therefore, had been anxiously desired. Nearly 
the whole of the French coal supply had come 
from Lens and the adjacent Bethune coal 

5—8 



114 THE WORLD WAR 

fields. The Bethune field, although steadily 
working, had never produced enough coal for 
even the pressing necessities of the French 
munition works. 

The news that Bapaume had fallen on Au- 
gust 29th brought back, especially to the 
British, memories not only the previous year 
and of the great forward movement which, on 
March 17th, had swept them over Bapaume 
and Peronne, but also bitter memories of the 
retreat in the previous March, which had car- 
ried them back under the overwhelming Ger- 
man pressure. The capture therefore was 
balm to their spirits, and an English corre- 
spondent, Mr. Philip Gibbs, who had accom- 
panied the British on their previous advance, 
found officers and men full of laughter and full 
of memories. 

On all sides were the battle-fields of 1916 
and 1917; Mametz Wood, Belleville Wood, 
Usna Hill, Ginchy, Morval, Guillemont. 
The fields were covered with battle debris, and 
yet to the English it was sacred ground from 
the graves of the men who fell there. Those 



R3fc 



^md^jSp 




FAMOUS BRITISH GENERALS 

General Smith-Dorrien, British Corps Commander in the famous retreat from 
Mons; Generals Plumer, Rawlinson and Byng, Commanders on the Western Front; 
General Birdwood, Commander of the Australian-New Zealand troops at Galhpoli. 



IN THE NORTH 115 

graves still remained. The British shell fire 
had not touched them, but as the English ad- 
vanced there were many bodies of gray-clad 
men on the roads and fields, and dead horses, 
and a litter of barbed wire, and deep shelters 
dug under banks, and shell craters, and hel- 
mets, gas masks, and rifles thrown here and 
there by the enemy as they fled. Now it was 
the Germans that were fleeing, and fleeing 
hopelessly, sullen, bitter at their officers, im- 
patient of discipline. 

One of the great differences between the at- 
tacks of the Allies in their last year of the war 
and those of preceding years, was the increased 
use and the improved character of the tanks. 
The tanks were a development of the war. 
Before the war, however, the development of 
the caterpillar tractor had suggested to a few 
far-sighted people the possibility of evolving 
from this invention a machine capable of of- 
fensive use over rough country in close war- 
fare. Experiments were made in behalf of 
the English War Office for some time without 
practical results. 



116 THE WORLD WAR 

At last after these experiments had resulted 
in various failures, a type of tractor was finally 
designed which produced satisfactory results. 
It was a caterpillar tractor, with an endless 
self-laid track, over which internal driving 
wheels could be propelled by the engines. It 
was not until July, 1916, that the first consign- 
ment of these new engines of warfare arrived 
at the secret maneuver ground. 

There were two kinds. One called the male 
was armed with two Hotchkiss quick-fire guns, 
as well as with an armament of machine guns. 
The other type, called the female, was armed 
only with machine guns. The male tank was 
designed for dealing with the concrete em- 
placements for the German machine guns. 
The other was more suitable for dealing with 
machine-gun personnel and riflemen. Some 
time was taken in training men to use these 
tanks, for the crew of a tank must suffer a great 
deal of hardship ; on account of the noise of the 
engine every command had to be made by signs, 
and the motion of the tank being like that of a 



IN THE NORTH 117 

ship on a heavy sea, was likely to produce sea- 
sickness. 

The tanks were painted with weird colors 
for the purpose of concealment, and when they 
first appeared caused a great deal of wonder 
and amusement. They were first used in bat- 
tle on September 15, 1916, in a continuation 
of the battle of the Somme, and proved a great 
surprise to the Germans. The Germans di- 
rected all available rifle and machine-gun fire 
upon them without success. A correspondent 
narrates that: "As the 'Creme de Menthe' 
moved on its way, the bullets fell from its sides 
harmlessly. It advanced upon a broken wall, 
leaned up against it heavily, until it fell with 
a crash of bricks, and then rose on to the bricks 
and passed over them and walked straight into 
the midst of factory ruins." They were an 
immense success and had come to stay. In the 
course of time, on account of the growing size 
and importance of the tanks organization, the 
British established a special Tank Corps by 
itself, under a Director General. The troops 



118 THE WORLD WAR 

of other nations soon found it necessary to use 
the new engine of war, and, throughout the 
year of 1918, the Allied superiority in tanks 
had much to do with their success. 

One more great Allied victory must be 
briefly referred to. The capture of Cambrai, 
which took place on the 3th of October, was the 
climax of weeks of the hardest fighting of the 
whole year, and the Germans were driven into 
a flight which was practically a rout. In the 
series of fights which resulted in this great suc- 
cess the British engaged and defeated thirty- 
six German divisions, approximately 432,000 
men. The final attack was fought by infantry 
without artillery support, for it was fought in 
the streets of the city, where every house was a 
machine-gun fort. 

On the previous day the Canadians had cap- 
tured the Scheldt Canal, which swings in a 
close loop around the city. The attack was 
made in the darkness and rain, and eveiy step 
in advance was bitterly contested. The Ger- 
mans received numerous reinforcements and 
counter-attacked again and again with the most 



IN THE NORTH 119 

fanatical courage. The British advance was 
a massacre, and at four o'clock in the morning 
the Canadian and English troops, pressing in 
from the north and south of the city, joined 
hands in the chief square of Cambrai. 

This was a city which in the previous year 
had resisted all British attacks. Its capture 
was a glorious victory and it was only accom- 
plished after the Allied forces had stormed 
down the strongest lines ever made in war. 



CHAPTER VII 

Belgium's Gallant Effort 

FOR more than four years Belgium suffered 
under the iron heel of the German inva- 
ders. One little corner in the far west was oc- 
cupied by her gallant army, fighting with the 
utmost courage and a patriotism which has won 
the admiration of the world under its great 
King Albert, whose heroic leadership had 
turned the little commercial nation into a na- 
tion of heroes. Conditions of life in the Bel- 
gian cities were almost intolerable. The great 
Belgian Relief Commission, under the direc- 
tion of Mr. Hoover, had kept the people from 
starvation, but it could not secure them their 
rights. They lived in the midst of brutality 
and injustice. 

On Belgian Independence Day at London, 

Arthur J. Balfour, the British Foreign Min- 

120 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 121 

ister, made an address in which he commented 
upon the German treatment of Belgium. In 
the course of his address he said: "Bitter 
must be the thought in every Belgian heart of 
what Belgians in Belgium are now suffering. 
Let them, however, take courage. Let their 
spirits rise in a mood of profound cheerfulness, 
for these dark days are not going to last for- 
ever, and when they come to a conclusion, when 
again peace dawns upon this much tormented 
and cruelly tried world, when Belgium is again 
free and prosperous, then Belgians, whether 
they have spent these unhappy years in exile, 
or, an even harder fate, have spent them in their 
own country, they will be able to look back 
upon this time of cruel and unexampled trial, 
and they will say to themselves, to their children 
and to their descendants, that Belgium, though 
her existence as a political entity is less than a 
century, has within that period shown an ex- 
ample of courage, constancy and virtue to man- 
kind for which all the world should be grate- 
ful." 

The English Foreign Minister was perhaps 



122 THE WORLD WAR 

not prophesying. He knew something of what 
was coming. The Great Offensive which was 
to free Belgium and her German oppressor was 
already under way. The first move, however, 
was not upon land, but upon the sea. In the 
autumn of 1914 the little Belgian port of Zee- 
brugge, with the neighboring port of Ostend, 
was captured by the Germans. The Germans, 
who had already seized the ship-building plants 
at Antwerp, then began to build submarines, 
and sent them down the canals through Bruges 
to Zeebrugge and Ostend. From these ports 
they proceeded to attack the English com- 
merce. 

In the spring of 1918 submarine attacks on 
English shipping was so serious that England 
was using every possible effort to destroy these 
piratical craft, and it was determined to make 
an attempt to block the entrances to the canals 
at Zeebrugge and Ostend, by sinking old ships 
in the channels. 

The expedition took place during the night 
of April 22d, under the command of Vice- 
Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. Six obsolete Brit- 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 123 

ish cruisers took part in the expedition. These 
were the Brilliant, Iphigenia, Sirius, Intrepid, 
Thetis and Vindictive. The Vindictive carried 
storming parties to destroy the stone mole at 
Zeebrugge; the remaining five cruisers were 
filled with concrete, and it was intended that 
they should be sunk in the entrances of the two 
ports. A large force of monitors and small 
fast craft accompanied the expedition. An 
observer thus describes the heroic exploit: 

The night was overcast and there was a drift- 
ing haze. Down the coast a great searchlight 
swung its beam to and fro in the small wind and 
short sea. From the Vindictive's bridge, as she 
headed in toward the mole, there was scarcely 
a glimmer of light to be seen shoreward. 
Ahead as she drove through the water rolled 
the smoke screen, her cloak of invisibility, 
wrapped about her by small craft. This was 
the device of Wing- Commander Brock, with- 
out which, acknowledged the Admiral in com- 
mand, the operation could not have been con- 
ducted. A northwest wind moved the volume 
of it shoreward ahead of the ships. Beyond it 



124 THE WORLD WAR 

was the distant town, its defenders unsuspi- 
cious. 

It was not until the Vindictive, with blue- 
jackets and marines standing ready for land- 
ing, was close upon the mole, that the wind 
lulled and came away again from the southeast, 
sweeping back the smoke screen and laying her 
bare to eyes that looked seaward. There 
was a moment immediately afterward when it 
seemed to those on the ships as if the dim harbor 
exploded into light. A star shell soared aloft, 
then a score of star shells. Wavering beams 
of the searchlights swung around and settled 
into a glare. A wild fire of gun flashes leaped 
against the sky; strings of luminous green 
beads shot aloft, hung and sank. The dark- 
ness of the night was supplemented by a night- 
mare dajdight of battle-fired guns, and machine 
guns along the mole. The batteries ashore 
woke to life. 

It was in a gale of shelling that the Vin- 
dictive laid her nose against the thirty-foot- 
high concrete side of the mole, let go her anchor, 
and signalled to the Daffodil to shove her stern 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 125 

in. The Iris went ahead and endeavored to 
get alongside likewise. 

The fire was intense while the ships plunged 
and rolled beside the mole in the seas, the Vin- 
dictive, with her greater draft, jarring against 
the foundations of the mole with every lunge. 
They were swept diagonally by machine-gun 
fire from both ends of the mole and by the 
heavy batteries on shore. Captain Carpenter 
conned the Vindictive from the open bridge 
until her stern was laid in, when he took up 
his position in the flame thrower hut on the port 
side. It is marvelous that any occupant should 
have survived a minute in this hut, so riddled 
and shattered was it. 

The officer of the Iris, which was in trouble 
ahead of the Vindictive, described Captain Car- 
penter as handling her like a picket boat. The 
Vindictive was fitted along her port side with 
a high, false deck, from which ran eighteen 
brows, or gangways, by which the storming 
and demolition parties were to land. The men 
gathered in readiness on the main lower decks, 
while Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the ma- 



126 THE WORLD WAR 

rines, waited on the false deck just abaft the 
bridge. Captain Hallahan, who commanded 
the bluejackets, was amidships. The word for 
the assault had not yet been given when both 
leaders were killed. 

The mere landing on the mole was a perilous 
business. It involved a passage across the 
crashing and splintering gangways, a drop over 
the parapet into the field of fire of the German 
machine-guns which swept its length, and a 
further drop of some sixteen feet to the surface 
of the mole itself. Many were killed and more 
wounded as they crowded up the gangways, but 
nothing hindered the orderly and speedy land- 
ing by every gangway. The lower deck was a 
shambles, as the Commander made the round 
of the ship, yet the wounded and dying raised 
themselves to cheer as he made his tour. 

The Iris had trouble of her own. Her first 
attempts to make fast to the mole ahead of the 
Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not 
large enough to span the parapet. Two of- 
ficers, Lieutenant-Commander Bradford, and 
Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat 




STORMING THE MOLE AT ZEEBRUGGE 

One of the most brilliant and spectacular feats in naval history was the British 
blocking of the submarine harbor at Zeebrugge. The picture shows one of the 
detachments of marines that braved the terrific German defense fire and swarmed 
up the mole that protects the harbor, planting explosives that made a great breach and 
let the tides in. 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 



127 



astride the parapet trying to make the grap- 
nels fast, till each was killed, and fell down be- 



3JSA 




Zeebrugge Harbor, Blocked by British 



tween the ship and the wall. Commander Val- 
entine Gibbs had both legs shot away, and died 
next morning. Lieutenant Spencer though 



128 THE WORLD WAR 

wounded, took command and refused to be re- 
lieved. 

The Iris was obliged at last to change her po- 
sition and fall in astern of the Vindictive, which 
suffered very heavily from fire. Her total 
casualties were eight officers and sixty-nine 
men killed, and three officers and 103 men 
wounded. 

The storming parties upon the mole met with 
no resistance from the Germans other than an 
intense and unremitting fire. One after an- 
other buildings burst into flames, or split and 
crumbled as dynamite went off. A bombing 
party working up toward the mole in search of 
the enemy destroyed several machine-gun em- 
placements but not a single prisoner awarded 
them. It appears that upon the approach of 
the ships and with the opening of fire the enemy 
simply retired and contented themselves with 
burning machine guns to the short end of the 
mole. 

The object of the fighting on the mole was in 
large part to divert the enemy's attention while 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 129 

the work of blocking the canals was being ac- 
complished. 

Of this operation the official narrative says: 
"The Thetis came first steaming into a tornado 
of shells from great batteries ashore. All her 
crew save a remnant who remained to steam 
her in and sink her, already had been taken off 
her by a ubiquitous motor launch. The rem- 
nant spared hands enough to keep her four 
guns going. It was hers to show the road to 
the Intrepid and Iphigenia which followed. 
She cleared a string of armed barges, which de- 
fends the channel from the tip of the mole, but 
had the ill-fortune to foul one of her propellers 
upon a net defense which flanks it on the shore 
side. The propeller gathered in the net and 
it rendered her practically unmanageable. 
Shore batteries found her and pounded her un- 
remittingly. She bumped into the bank, 
edged off and found herself in the channel 
again, still some hundreds of yards from the 
mouth of the canal in practically a sinking con- 
dition. As she lay she signalled invaluable di- 



5—9 



130 THE WORLD WAR 

rections to others, and her Commander blew 
charges and sank it. Motor launches took off 
her crew. The Intrepid, smoking like a vol- 
cano, and with all her guns blazing, followed. 
Her motor launch had failed to get alongside, 
outside the harbor, and she had men enough for 
anything. Straight into the canal she steered, 
her smoke blowing back from her into the Iphi- 
genia's eyes so that the latter was blinded, and 
going a little wild, ran into the dredger, with 
her barge moored beside it, which lay at the 
western arm of the canal. She was not clear 
though, and entered the canal, pushing the 
barge before her. 

"It was then that a shell hit the steam con- 
nections of her whistle and the escape of steam 
which followed drove off some of the smoke, 
and let her see what she was doing. Lieuten- 
ant Carter, commanding the Intrepid, placed 
the nose of his ship neatly on the mud of the 
western bank, ordered his crew away, and blew 
up his ship by switches in the chart room. 
Lieutenant Leake, commanding the Iphigenia, 
beached her according to arrangement on the 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 131 

eastern side, blew her up, saw her drop nicely 
across the canal, and left her with her engines 
still going to hold her in position till she should 
have bedded well down on the bottom. Ac- 
cording to the latest reports from air observa- 
tion the two old ships, with their holds full of 
concrete, are lying across the canal in a V-posi- 
tion, and it is probable that the work they set 
out to do has been accomplished and that the 
canal is effectively blocked." 

At Ostend an attempt was also made to block 
the canal on the same night, but it was unsuc- 
cessful owing to a shift of wind which blew 
away the smoke screen behind which the British 
craft were acting, and enabled the German gun 
fire to destroy the flares which had been lit to 
mark the entrance to the harbor. The cruisers 
tried to act by guesswork, and one of the 
block ships was sunk, but it was not in a posi- 
tion to obstruct the canal. 

On May 9th another attempt was made, and 
the Vindictive, filled with concrete, was sunk in 
the Ostend channel. 

This daring exploit of the English fleet, 



132 THE WORLD WAR 

though it had destroyed the value of Zeebrugge 
and Ostend as submarine bases, had left the 
Germans in possession. In September, how- 
ever, General Foch determined that the time 
had come to throw his armies against the Ger- 
man forces in the distracted little country. 
He planned two widely separated thrusts. On 
the south he sent Pershing against the Germans 
between the Argonne and the Meuse. They 
made rapid progress, capturing Montfaucon, 
Varennes and driving on until they had de- 
stroyed the German control of the Paris- 
Chalons-Verdun Railroad. 

This was a serious blow to the Germans, for 
a further push northward would cut the vital 
lateral railway connecting the German armies 
in Belgium and France with those in Alsace- 
Lorraine. Ludendorff hastened reserves to 
this front, and the American operation was 
slowed down. Meanwhile at the other end of 
the line the Belgians, with General Plumer's 
Second British Army, suddenly attacked on a 
front which extended all the way from the 
canal at Dixmude to the Lys, swept the Ger- 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 133 

mans out of all the famous fighting ground 
of the Ypres salient, pushed across the Pass- 
chendaele Ridge and down into the Flanders 
plain below. 

The situation of the Germans in the Lille re- 
gions of the south and also the Belgian coast 
became at once dangerous. Once more Lu- 
dendorff was compelled to send reserves, and 
this thrust began to slow up but it was not 
checked permanently, and the Belgian armies 
were to move on. While this advance was be- 
ing conducted the British fleet were bombard- 
ing the coastal defenses. The Belgian army, 
fighting with the utmost spirit under command 
of King Albert, made a penetration of five 
miles and captured four thousand prisoners and 
an immense amount of supplies. 

On September 30th they captured the city of 
Roulers. For ten days there was a consolida- 
tion of position by the Allies, but on October 
14th they made a furious attack in the general 
direction of Ghent and Courtrai. Thousands 
of prisoners and several complete batteries of 
guns were captured. In this attack British, 



134 THE WORLD WAR 

Belgian and French troops took part, and the 
troops of the three nations went over the top 
without preliminary bombardment, taking the 
enemy by surprise. 

On October 15th the news from Flanders 
showed that the victory was growing in extent, 
the Allied armies were advancing on a front of 
about twenty-five miles, and in some places had 
penetrated the enemy's positions six or seven 
miles. The Belgians had captured seven 
thousand prisoners and the British and French 
about four thousand. In French Flanders the 
British advanced to a point about three miles 
west of Lille. 

The battle was carried on in a heavy rain 
which turned the battlefields into seas of mud ; 
while this hampered the Allied troops it hin- 
dered even more the Germans in trying to move 
away their material through the mired ground 
of the Flanders Lowland. 

On the next day dispatches indicated that a 
retreat on a tremendous scale in northern Bel- 
gium was under way. The Germans were re- 
treating so fast that the Allies lost touch with 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 135 

the enemy. The gallant little Belgian army, 
assisted by crack British and French troops, 
had driven the despoilers of its country from a 
large section which the Germans had occupied 
since the early days of the war, and had gained 
positions of such importance as to make it 
probable that the Germans would have to 
abandon the entire coast of Belgium. 

Moreover, on the south, the city of Lille, with 
the great mining and manufacturing districts 
around it, was being left in a salient which was 
growing deeper every hour and which the 
enemy could not hope to hold. At certain 
points the resistance of the Germans was ex- 
traordinarily fierce. This was especially true 
in the region of Thouret. The battle here was 
from street to street and from house to house. 
The Germans had placed machine-guns in the 
windows of houses and cellars and fired mur- 
derous streams of bullets into the advancing 
Belgians but were unable to stop them. 

The Belgians fought with a dogged deter- 
mination such as only troops fighting to regain 
their outraged country could display. Noth- 



136 THE WORLD WAR 

ing could stop them. At other points, especi- 
ally in the northern part of the battle area, the 
Germans surrendered freely. Many civilians 
were rescued from the towns and districts cap- 
tured, and little processions of these were strag- 
gling rearward out of range of the guns, and 
out of the way of the fighting troops. At 
times liberated Belgian women could see their 
sons, brothers or husbands going forward into 
battle. On October 17th the German retreat 
in Flanders became a rout. The enemy were 
fleeing rapidly on their entire front from the 
sea southward. The British entered Lille. 

The Germans fled from Ostend and British 
naval forces were landed there. The Belgian 
infantry were sweeping up the coast, and Bel- 
gian patrols entered Bruges. In the afternoon 
of the day King Albert of Belgium, and Queen 
Elizabeth entered Ostend. The splendid 
fighting of the Belgian troops and their mag- 
nificent victory was now attracting universal 
attention. It was one of the revelations of ^he 
war. They were bearing the giant's sha >f 
the work of the Allied armies in their o 



BELGIUM'S EFFORT 137 

country, and had already liberated territory 
which more than doubled the area of that part 
of Belgium which had been in their possession. 

With the Belgian coast cleared of invaders it 
became open to British transports which would 
afford relief to the whole Allied armies from 
the resultant decrease in the congestion of the 
channel ports. On October 19th the progress 
continued. Zeebrugge was occupied by the 
Allies, the last Belgian port remaining in Ger- 
man hands. 

The Belgian advance continued along the 
whole line. King Albert entered Bruges. 
Day after day the advance continued. The re- 
ception of the King and Queen of Belgium in 
the recovered towns was something to remem- 
ber. In Bruges they rode in amid the tumul- 
tuous cheering of the frenzied population. In 
the central square they were received by the 
burgomaster with an escort of a solitary gen- 
darme, who had refused to give up his uniform 
and old-fashioned rifle to the enemy; though 
fined and imprisoned he had kept their hiding 
place secret. As he stood there alone with 



138 THE WORLD WAR 

fixed bayonet the King and the Queen shook 
him by the hand and congratulated him. 
Greatly moved, he stammered, "It is too great 
an honor, too great an honor." 

And with all this happiness came the happi- 
ness arising from the return of the soldiers to 
the homes from which they had been absent so 
long, the reunions of husband and wife, of 
parents and children. Belgium was now to 
reap the reward for her heroism. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Italy's Terrific Drive 

FOR many months after the great Italian 
stand on the Piave there was inactivity on 
both fronts in Italy. The Italians had been re- 
enforced by troops from France and Great 
Britain and their own army was now larger 
than it had been at any other time. On June 
15th, about the time when the Germans were 
being driven back on the Marne and the Oise, 
the Austrians, urged to action by the Germans, 
suddenly undertook a great offensive on a 
front from the Asiago Plateau to the sea, a 
distance of ninety-seven miles. 

From the very start it was plain that the 
Italians were resisting magnificently. The 
offensive was not unexpected, either in time or 
locality, and had been openly discussed in the 
Italian press. The Italians therefore were not 
taken by surprise, and moreover since the dis- 

139 



140 THE WORLD WAR 

aster of Caparetto the Italians had learned 
by a patient campaign of education what they 
were fighting for. 

On the second day of the battle the Austrian 
troops made a desperate effort to break 
through the Italian lines, particularly in the 
eastern sector of the Asiago Plateau, and 
crossed the Piave River at two places. They 
also attacked the French positions between 
Osteria di Monf enera and Maranzine, but were 
driven back with heavy loss. At every point 
where the Austrians were able to advance the 
Italians initiated vigorous counter attacks. 
The order to Italy's army was, "Hold at any 
cost." 

On the third day of the battle the Austrian 
Offensive was being strongly checked. They 
had established three bridge heads on the Piave, 
but had not been able to advance. The most 
notable of these crossings was that in the Mon- 
tello sector. Montello is of particular im- 
portance, because it is the hinge between the 
mountains and the Piave sectors of the Italian 
front. If it could be held the Austrians would 



ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 141 

be in a position to dominate from the flank and 
rear all the Italian positions defending the line 
of the Piave in the dead flat plain to the south. 

On the Lower Piave the Austrians had made 
gains and had captured Capo Sile. The Aus- 
trians were using a million men and were using 
liquid fire and gas bombs, but their every move 
was resisted strongly. Vienna was claiming 
the capture of 30,000 men, but the Italian re- 
ports claimed that the Austrian losses were stu- 
pendous. Thousands of dead were heaped be- 
fore the Italian line in the mountain sectors, 
blocking the mule paths and choking the de- 
files. No fewer than nine desperate on- 
slaughts upon Monte Grappa, always with 
fresh reserves, were broken upon Grappa 
heights, with terrific losses. 

On July 19th the dispatches from Rome 
were emphasizing the Italian counter attacks. 
Not only were the Italians preventing the 
enemy from making further gains, but they 
were beginning to crowd him back at the points 
where he had crossed the river, and were rain- 
ing bombs and machine-gun bullets upon the 



142 THE WORLD WAR 

Austrian troops at the bridge head. They 
were also taking the initiative in the fighting in 
the mountain sectors. 

By June 20th the Austrian defeat was clear. 
Their forces were backed against the flooded 
Piave, which had carried away their bridges 
and left them to the mercy of the Italians. 
Thousands were being killed and other thou- 
sands captured. Czecho-Slovak troops, it was 
reported, had joined in the fighting, and had 
given their first tribute of blood to the generous 
principles of freedom and independence for 
which they were in arms. In the Piave delta 
the Italians had regained Capo Sile, which had 
been captured early in the drive, and it was re- 
ported that all along the Piave line they had 
won complete control of the air, not a single 
Austrian machine being still aloft. The spirits 
of the Austrian troops had been definitely 
weakened. They were war wearied, and evi- 
dence began to accumulate that Austria's drive 
was a "hunger offensive." 

As the battle continued reports began to ar- 
rive of the gallant deeds of American airmen, 



ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 143 

who were helping in the fighting along the 
front. The airmen were assisting in destroy- 
ing the bridges that the Austrians were trying 
to throw across the river. The Piave was now 
a vast cataract and the bridges which it had not 
washed down were constantly destroyed by the 
aviators. The Austrians on the western bank 
were rinding it difficult to obtain supplies and 
were lesorting to hydroplanes for that purpose. 
On June 24th the Austrian attack had defi- 
nitely failed and they were fleeing in disorder 
across the Piave. One hundred and eighty 
thousand men had already been lost and forty 
thousand were hemmed in on the western side 
of the river. The Austrian communications 
were emphasizing the difficulties they were 
meeting with through the heavy rains. 

The victory of the Italians, which was now 
apparent, was received all over Italy with 
great public rejoicing. Italy had been repent- 
ing in sackcloth and ashes her defeat of the 
previous fall. Now they had made amends and 
were showing what the Italian soldier could 
really do. In America, and among the Allied 



144 THE WORLD WAR 

Powers, there was great enthusiasm, and Sec- 
retary of War Baker sent this congratulatory 
message to the Italian Minister of War: 

Your Excellency: The people of the United States 
are watching with enthusiasm and admiration the splen- 
did exploits of the great army of Italy in resisting and 
driving back the enemy forces which recently undertook 
a major offensive on the Italian front. I take great 
pleasure in tendering my own hearty congratulations, 
and would be most happy to have a message of greeting 
and congratulation transmitted to General Diaz and his 
brave soldiers. 

Newton D. Baker, 
Secretary of War of the United States. 

In announcing to his victorious army the re- 
pulse of the Austrians General Diaz, the Italian 
Commander-in-Chief, said: "The enemy who, 
with furious impetuosity, used all means to 
penetrate our territory has been repulsed at 
all points. His losses are very heavy. His 
pride is broken. Glory to all commands, all 
soldiers, all sailors." 

On the 26th of June the Italian troops, hav- 
ing forced the last rear guard of the retreating 
Austrians to surrender and completely occu- 
pied the west bank of the Piave, began an of- 



ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 145 

fensive on the mountain front in the Monte 
Grappe sector. They gained more than 3,000 
prisoners, and considerable territory. On the 
southern part of the Piave front they were car- 
rying on a vigorous offensive against the Aus- 
trian positions within the Piave delta. The 
Austrian troops, at that point, were being pre- 
vented from retreat by the high water, and 
suffered terrible losses. On July 6th the 
Italians drove the last of the enemy from the 
delta. 

The campaign in Italy now languished, un- 
til on October 27th Italy began her last terrible 
drive. The great Italian Offensive was made 
not only by their own forces and the French 
and British troops, which had assisted them the 
previous June, but during the intervening pe- 
riod a large force of Americans had arrived in 
Italy. On June 27th Secretary Baker had 
made the announcement that General Pershing 
had been instructed to send into Italy a regi- 
ment that was then in training in France. The 
regiment thus sent was augmented consider- 
ably later. The purpose of sending troops 

6—10 



146 THE WORLD WAR 

to Italy, Mr. Baker explained, was rather 
political than military. It was desired to 
demonstrate again that the Allied nations and 
the United States were one in their purposes 
on all fronts, and to extend the intercourse be- 
tween the troops of all the powers at war with 
Germany. 

On the second day of the Italian offensive 
their success increased. More than nine thou- 
sand Austrians were taken prisoners and fifty- 
one guns were captured. The Piave River had 
been crossed, and the Italians had advanced 
four miles to its east. The attacks in the 
mountain region were being more bitterly con- 
tested, and counter attacks had enabled the 
enemy to regain some of their lost positions. 

On October 30th the Italian advance was 
continuing. The Austrian front appeared to 
be breaking under the heavy blows of the Allied 
troops. Dispatches indicated striking suc- 
cesses, not only on the Italian front but at the 
points where the British and the French were 
holding the line. The Americans were being 
held in reserve, but American airplanes were 



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ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 147 

actively participating in the work at the front. 
By this time the last lines of the Austro-Hun- 
garian resistance on the central positions along 
the Piave River had been broken, and more 
than fifteen thousand prisoners been taken. 
The Austrians, however, had been desperately 
resisting, and their artillery fire at many points 
was very effective, especially that which had 
been directed at the pontoon bridges thrown 
across the Piave. 

King Victor Emanuel had been present in 
person during the crossing, and was often un- 
der the fire of the Austrian guns. On October 
30th, 33,000 Austrians had been captured and 
the Italians had reached Vittorio. Americans 
had now joined in the fighting. 

The Austrian retreat reached the proportion 
of a rout. They were still fighting, especially 
in the mountain region, but in the plains east 
of the Piave they were in full flight. Tak- 
ing into consideration the numbers of troops 
in the Austrian lines and their apparently 
plentiful supplies, it began to seem probable 
that their break was due more to political 



148 THE WORLD WAR 

maneuvers than to military force. The Aus- 
trians at this time were making a great peace 
drive, and the dissatisfaction at home had ef- 
fected the morale of the troops at the front. 
The conditions in Italy were in close resem- 
blance to those in Bulgaria just before Bul- 
garia applied for an armistice. 

On the 1st of November the Austrians were 
completely routed, and were streaming in con- 
fusion down the valleys of the Alpine foothills, 
and fleeing northward for the Piave. Reports 
from Austria indicated riots at Vienna and 
Budapest. In Vienna people were parading 
the streets, shouting "Down with the Haps- 
burgs!" On October 29th, the Austrians 
asked for an armistice. Their announcement 
read as follows: 

The High Command of the armies, early Tuesday, by 
means of a Parliamentaire, established communication 
with the Italian army command. Every effort is to be 
made for the avoidance of further useless sacrifice of 
blood, for the cessation of hostilities, and the conclusion 
of an armistice. Toward this step which is animated by 
the best intentions the Italian High Command at first 
assumed an attitude of unmistakable refusal, and it was 
only on the evening of Wednesday that, in accord with 



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ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 149 

the Italian High Command, General Weber, accompanied 
by a deputation, was permitted to cross the fighting line 
for preliminary pourparlers. 

General Diaz, the Italian Commander, had 
referred the Austrian request to the Versailles 
Conference, and had acted in accordance with 
their direction. In proposing the armistice the 
Austrians had also expressed their resolve to 
bring about peace and to evacuate the occupied 
territory of Italy. This was the beginning of 
the end. 

The northern part of Italy is bounded by 
the Alps, and between those lofty ranges and 
the deep valleys there had been constant fight- 
ing. In this fighting, both on mountain and in 
valley, there were the most extraordinarj^ deeds 
of individual heroism, constantly exhibited. 

The Alpine regiments, known in Italy as 
the Alpini, were men of extraordinary physical 
powers, accustomed to mountain climbing, and 
filled with courage and patriotism. Owing to 
the nature of the territory in such contests, only 
a limited number of men could be used at one 
time, and the fighting went on over masses of 



150 THE WORLD WAR 

snow or solid rock. Guns were hauled up 
precipices and dugouts excavated in the rock 
itself. The Italian troops, clothed in white 
overalls to prevent their being seen, moved 
with great rapidity from point to point, and 
forced their enemy to keep constantly on the 
alert. In the great Italian drive just described 
the most bitter fighting was that which occurred 
in these mountainous regions. 

The work of the Italian aviators is also 
worthy of special attention. They not only se- 
cured entire command of the air, but by flying 
low they often threw into confusion with their 
machine guns the Austrian infantry. Their 
wonderful work in bringing in military in- 
formation, and in bombing expeditions, was 
not excelled, if it was equaled, by the airmen 
of any other country. The Italian airplanes 
themselves were engineering triumphs. The 
inventive genius so notable in these days in 
Italy found expression in their development. 
Some of their machines were the biggest made 
during the whole war, and the long journeys 



ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 151 

made by such machines deserve special men- 
tion. The most interesting feat of this kind 
was performed on August 9th by the famous 
poet, Captain Gabrielle D'Annunzio. Ac- 
companied by eight Italian machines, he flew 
to the city of Vienna, a total distance of 620 
miles, and dropped copies of an Allied mani- 
festo over the city. They crossed the Alps in 
a great wind storm at a height of ten thousand 
feet, and all but one returned safely. The 
manifesto, which was written by D'Annunzio 
reads as follows: 

People of Vienna, you are fated to know the Italians. 
We are flying over Vienna and could drop tons of bombs. 
On the contrary we leave a salutation and the flag with 
its colors of liberty. We Italians do not make war on 
children, the aged and women. We make war on your 
government, which is the enemy of the liberty of na- 
tions, — on your blind, wanton, cruel government, which 
gives you neither peace nor bread, and nurtures you on 
hatred and delusions. People of Vienna, you have the 
reputation of being intelligent, why then do you wear 
the Prussian uniform? Now you see the entire world 
is against you, do you wish to continue the war? Keep 
on, then, but it will be your suicide. What can you 
hope from the victory promised to you by the Prussian 
generals? Their decisive victory is like the bread of 



152 THE WORLD WAR 

the Ukraine, — one dies while awaiting it. People of 
Vienna, think of your dear ones, awake ! Long live 
Italy, Liberty and the Entente! 

It was said that copies of this proclamation 
in Vienna had a value of fifty dollars a copy. 
D'Annunzio's great fame had seized upon the 
popular imagination. His career in the war 
would have been interesting in itself, but when 
one recognizes that he was already a world 
figure, the greatest modern Italian dramatist 
and novelist, his life seems almost like a fairy 
story. B ef ore the war began he made addresses 
all over his country, urging Italy's participa- 
tion in the war, and when war was declared, to 
him, as much as to any other man, was due the 
credit. He entered the Navy, and has written 
some fascinating descriptions of his life on 
board ship. Later he joined the airplane 
corps, and now was showering down upon the 
gaping populace of Vienna appeals to rise 
against its Hapsburg masters. D'Annunzio 
was extraordinary in his literary career. He 
had been the poet of passion, a writer of novels 
and plays, which although artistic in the high- 



ITALY'S TERRIFIC DRIVE 153 

est degree, showed him to be an egotist and a 
decadent. But long before the war he had 
tired of his erotic productions and had begun 
to write the praises of Nature and of heroes. 
He had been singing the praises of his 
country. "La Nave" symbolizes the glory of 
Venice. He had become more wholesome. 
War was making him not only a man but a 
hero. 

Of course D'Annunzio was not the only 
great literary man who had left the study for 
the battle-field. iEschylus fought at Mara- 
thon and Salamis; Ariosto put down a rebel- 
lion for his prince between composition of 
cantos of Orlando Furioso; Sir Philip Sydney 
was scholar, poet and soldier, and many a sol- 
dier when his wars were over has turned to the 
labors of the pen. Yet it is not without sur- 
prise that one sees D'Annunzio join this dis- 
tinguished company, and one's admiration 
grows as it becomes plain that he was not a 
mere poseur. He was a poet, but he was a 
soldier too. Not every great poet could drive 
an airplane to Vienna. 



CHAPTER IX 

Bulgaria Deserts Germany 

DURING the year 1916 there was little 
movement in the Balkans. The Allies 
had settled down at Saloniki and entrenched 
themselves so strongly that their positions were 
practically impregnable. These entrench- 
ments were on slopes facing north, heavily 
wired and with seven miles of swamp before 
them, over which an attacking army would 
have to pass. It was obviously inadvisable 
to withdraw entirely the armies at Saloniki. 
So long as they were there it was possible at 
any time to make an attack on Bulgaria in case 
Russia or Roumania should need such assist- 
ance. And moreover, it was evident that it 
was only the presence of the Saloniki army that 
kept Greece neutral. During the year there 
were a few fights which were little more than 

154 



BULGARIA DESERTS 155 

skirmishes; almost all of the German soldiers 
had been withdrawn, and it was chiefly the 
Bulgarian army that was facing the Allies. 
On May 26th Bulgarian forces advanced into 
Greece and occupied Fort Rupel, with the ac- 
quiescence of the Greek Government. 

The Greeks were in a difficult position. It 
was not unnatural that King Constant ine and 
the Greek General Staff believed that the Al- 
lies had small chance of victory. Moreover, 
they had no special ambitions which could be 
satisfied by a war against the Central Powers. 
On the other hand, Turkey was an hereditary 
enemy, and the big sea coast would put them 
at the mercy of the British navy in case they 
should join their fortunes to those of Austro- 
Germany. To an impartial observer their 
policy of neutrality, if not heroic, was at least 
wise. The Greek Government, therefore, did 
its best to preserve neutrality. The surrender 
of Fort Rupel was not, however, a neutral act 
and roused in Greece a strong popular protest. 

Venizelos, who at all times was strongly 
friendly to the Allies and who was the one great 



156 THE WORLD WAR 

Greek statesman who not only believed in their 
ultimate victory but who saw that the true in- 
terests of Greece were in Anatolia and the 
Islands of theiEgean, was strongly opposed to 
King Constantine's action. The Allies showed 
their resentment by a pacific blockade, to pre- 
vent the export of coal to Greece, with the ob- 
ject of preventing supplies from reaching the 
enemy. This led to a certain amount of excite- 
ment and the Allied embassies in Athens were 
insulted by mobs. The governments, there- 
fore, presented an ultimatum commanding the 
demobilization of the Greek army, the appoint- 
ment of a neutral Ministry, and the calling of 
a new election for the Greek Chamber of Depu- 
ties, as well as the proper punishment of those 
who were guilty of the disorder. 

In substance, the Greeks yielded to the Al- 
lied demand, but before a new election could be 
held an attack by the Bulgarians on the 17th 
of August changed the situation. The Bul- 
garian armies entered deep in Greek territory 
in the eastern provinces and captured the city 
of Kavalla without resistance from the armies 



BULGARIA DESERTS 157 

of Greece. A portion of the Greek army at 
Kavalla surrendered and was taken to Ger- 
many as "guests" of the German Government. 

This action of the Greek army led to a Greek 
revolution which broke out at Saloniki on the 
30th of August. The King pursued a tortu- 
ous policy, professing neutrality and yet con- 
stantly bringing himself under suspicion. 
The Revolutionists organized an army and 
finally M. Venizelos, after strong efforts to in- 
duce the King to act, became the head of the 
Provisional Government of the Revolutionists. 
The Allies pursued a policy almost as tortuous 
as that of King Constantine. They could not 
agree among themselves as to the proper policy, 
and took no decided course. King Constan- 
tine apparently had the support of Russia and 
of Italy. 

Meantime the fighting against Bulgaria was 
still proceeding. The main force of the Allies 
was directed against the city of Monastir, 
which, after considerable fighting, was cap- 
tured on November 19th. This gave the Ser- 
bians possession of an important point in their 



158 THE WORLD WAR 

own country and naturally proved a great 
stimulus to the Serbian armies. 

From that time on, and during the year 1917, 
little was done. Minor offensives were under- 
taken, some of which, like the Allied attack 
upon Doiran, deserve mention, but on the whole 
the fighting was a stalemate. Meanwhile the 
action of the Greek Government had become so 
unsatisfactory that it was finally determined 
to demand the abdication of King Constantine, 
and on June 11th he found himself compelled 
to yield. In his proclamation he said: 

Obeying necessity of fulfilling my duty toward 
Greece, I am departing from my beloved country ac- 
companied by the heir to the crown, and I leave my son 
Alexander on the throne. I beg you to accept my de- 
cision with calm. 

Early the next morning the King and his 
family set sail for Italy on his way to Switzer- 
land, where he became another "King in exile." 
His son Alexander accepted the throne and is- 
sued the following proclamation: 

At the moment when my august father, making a 
supreme sacrifice to our dear country, entrusted to me 
the heavy duties of the Hellenic throne, I express but 



BULGARIA DESERTS 159 

one single wish — that God, hearing his prayer, will pro- 
tect Greece, that He will permit us to see her again 
united and powerful. In my grief at being separated in 
circumstances so critical from my well-beloved father I 
have a single consolation: to carry out his sacred man- 
date which I will endeavor to realize with all my power, 
following the lines of his brilliant reign, with the help 
of the people upon whose love the Greek dynasty is sup- 
ported. I am convinced that in obeying the wishes of 
my father the people by their submission will do their 
part in enabling us together to rescue our dear country 
from the terrible situation in which it finds itself. 

The whole country to all appearance received 
the abdication with satisfaction. On June 
21st, M. Venizelos came to Athens and the 
Greek Chamber, which was illegally dissolved 
in 1915, was convoked and Venizelos once again 
became Prime Minister. At last he had suc- 
ceeded, and he proceeded at once to join the 
whole of the Grecian forces to the cause of the 
Allies. Of all the statesmen prominent in the 
Great War, there was none more wise, more 
consistent or more loyal than the great Greek 
statesman. 

For more than a year the Allied armies fac- 
ing Bulgaria, remained upon the defensive 



160 THE WORLD WAR 

when suddenly, on the 16th of September, 
1918, in the midst of the wonderful movements 
that were forcing back the German armies in 
France, a dispatch was received from the Allied 
forces in Macedonia. The Serbian army, in 
co-operation with French and English forces, 
had attacked the Bulgarian positions on a ten- 
mile front, had stormed those positions and 
progressed more than five miles. On the next 
day news was received that the advance was 
continuing; that the Allies had occupied an 
important series of ridges, and had pierced the 
Bulgarian front; that more than three thou- 
sand prisoners had been captured and twenty- 
four guns. The movement took place about 
twelve miles east of Monastir and the ridge of 
Sokol, and the town of Gradeshnitsa were cap- 
tured by the Allied troops. 

It soon became evident that one of the most 
important movements in the whole war was 
being carried on. The Bulgarian armies were 
crumbling, and the German troops sent to aid 
them had been put to flight. The Allied troops 
had advanced on an average of ten miles and 



BULGARIA DESERTS 161 

were continuing to advance. The Serbs, fight- 
ing at last near their own homes, were showing 
their real military strength. Four thousand 
prisoners had been taken, with an enormous 
quantity of war supplies. The Bulgarian posi- 
tions which had yielded so easily were positions 
which they had been fortifying for three years, 
and had been previously thought to be im- 
pregnable. 

On September 23d it became evident that the 
retreat of the Bulgarians had turned into 
a rout. Notwithstanding reinforcements of 
Germans and Bulgars rushed down in a frantic 
effort to check them, the Allied armies were 
advancing on an eighty-five-mile front, crush- 
ing all resistance. The Italian army, on the 
west, was meeting with equal success, and the 
news dispatches reported that the first Bul- 
garian army in the region of Prilep had been 
cut off. A dispatch received by the British 
War Office reported "As the result of attacks 
and continual heavy pressure by British and 
Greek troops, in conjunction with the French 
and Serbian advance farther west, the enemy 

5—11 



162 THE WORLD WAR 

has evacuated his whole line from Doiran to 
the west of the Vardar." As it retreated the 
Bulgarian army was burning supplies and de- 
stroying ammunition dumps, burning railway 
stations and ravaging the country. 

By this time it was felt throughout the Al- 
lied world that the Bulgarian defeat would 
have important political consequences. It was 
remembered that a short time before King 
Ferdinand had paid a visit to Germany, and 
after long conferences with the German War 
Lord, had hastily returned to Bulgaria. It 
was recalled that there had been many signs of 
serious disorder in Bulgaria, where the Social- 
ist party had been in close touch with the ad- 
vance parties in the Ukrainian Republic. It 
seemed possible that the Bulgarian defeats had 
been brought about by Bulgarian dissension 
and it was also evident that Germany was in 
no position to offer effective support to its Bul- 
garian accomplice. 

As the days passed by the news from this 
front became more and more favorable. At 
all points the Bulgarian armies were retreat- 



BULGARIA DESERTS 163 

ing in the most disorderly manner, closely pur- 
sued by the Serbians, French, English, Italians, 
and Greeks. Bulgarian troops were deserting 
in thousands, and thousands of others were sur- 
rendering without resistance. 

On September 26th it was announced that 
the Bulgar front had disappeared; that the 
armies had been cut into a number of groups 
and were fleeing before the Allied troops. 
Town after town was being captured, with 
enormous quantities of stores. On Friday, 
September 27th, it was announced that Bul- 
garia had asked the Allies for an armistice of 
forty-eight hours, with a view to making peace. 

The situation was now causing intense ex- 
citement. The Germans tried to minimize the 
Bulgarian surrender. A dispatch from Ber- 
lin declared that Premier Malinoff 's offer of 
an armistice was made without the support of 
other members of the Cabinet or of King Fer- 
dinand, and that Germany would make a sol- 
emn protest against it. German newspapers 
were demanding that Malinoff be dismissed 
immediately and court-martialed for high trea- 



164 THE WORLD WAR 

son. The Berlin message asserted that the 
Premier's offer had created great dissatisfac- 
tion in Bulgaria and that strong military 
measures had been taken to support the Bul- 
garian front. According to statements from 
Sofia it was added a counter -movement against 
the action of the Premier had already been set 
on foot. It was declared in Germany that the 
Premier's act was the result of Germany's re- 
fusal to send sufficient reinforcements to Bul- 
garia. Secretary Lansing made the announce- 
ment that the United States Government had 
received a proposal for an armistice. 

It appeared that Bulgaria had been maneu- 
vering toward peace for some time. The Bul- 
garians had foreseen their inability to meet 
the expected Allied attack, and had made every 
effort to obtain German reinforcements. 
Moreover, they were highly dissatisfied with 
the treatment they had received from Ger- 
many in connection with Bulgaria's dispute 
with Turkey as to territorial dispositions to be 
made after the war. Probably the most im- 
portant reason, however, for the Bulgarian 



BULGARIA DESERTS 165 

overthrow was that by this time they were sick 
of the war. They had not, in the first place, 
gone into it with any enthusiasm, and though 
they could fight bravely enough against their 
Serbian foe, no true Bulgarian could feel him- 
self in a natural position facing his old-time 
Russian friend. 

Bulgaria had come to the end. Malinoff, 
the Premier, had from the beginning been op- 
posed to the war. Mobs in Sofia were de- 
manding surrender. Ferdinand was com- 
pelled to give way to the wishes of his Cabinet 
and his people, and in spite of the fact that he 
had promised the Kaiser to remain faithful to 
the Alliance, he gave his consent to the move- 
ment for unconditional surrender. 

An official Bulgarian statement read as fol- 
lows: "In view of the conjunction of circum- 
stances which have recently arisen, and after 
the position had been jointly discussed with 
all competent authorities, the Bulgarian Gov- 
ernment, desiring to put an end to the blood- 
shed, has authorized the Commander-in-Chief 
of the army to propose to the Generalissimo of 



166 THE WORLD WAR 

the armies of the Entente at Saloniki, a cessa- 
tion of hostilities, and the entering into of ne- 
gotiations for obtaining an armistice and peace. 
The members of the Bulgarian delegation left 
yesterday evening in order to get into touch 
with the Plenipotentiaries of the Entente bel- 
ligerents." This statement was dated Septem- 
ber 24th. 

When the Bulgarian officers entrusted with 
the proposal for an armistice presented them- 
selves at Saloniki, General d'Esperey gave the 
following reply: "My response cannot be, by 
reason of the military situation, other than the 
following. I can accord neither an armistice 
nor a suspension of hostilities tending to in- 
terrupt the operations in course. On the other 
hand, I will receive with all due courtesy the 
delegates duly qualified of the Royal Bulgarian 
Government." The Bulgarian delegates were 
General Lonkhoff, commander of the Bul- 
garian Second Army, M. Liapcheff, Finance 
Minister, and M. Baden , a former member of 
the Bulgarian Cabinet. 

On the evening of the 29th an armistice was 



BULGARIA DESERTS 167 

signed. The terms of the surrender were ap- 
proved by the Entente Governments, and 
hostilities came to an end at noon on Septem- 
ber 30th. The terms of the armistice were as 
follows : 

Bulgaria agrees to evacuate all the territory she now 
occupies in Greece and Serbia; to demobilize her army 
immediately and surrender all means of transport to the 
Allies. Bulgaria also will surrender her boats and con- 
trol of navigation on the Danube, and concede to the 
Allies free passage through Bulgaria for the develop- 
ment of military operations. All Bulgarian arms and 
ammunition are to be stored under the control of the 
Allies, to whom is conceded the right to occupy all im- 
portant strategic points. The military occupation of 
Bulgaria will be entrusted to British, French and Italian 
forces, and the evacuated portions of Greece and Serbia, 
respectively, to Greek and Serbian troops. 

This armistice meant a complete military- 
surrender, and Bulgaria ceased to be a bellig- 
erent. All questions of territorial rearrange- 
ment in the Balkans were purposely omitted 
from the Convention. The Allies made no 
stipulation concerning King Ferdinand, his 
position being considered an internal matter, 
one for the Bulgarians themselves to deal with. 



168 THE WORLD WAR 

The armistice was to remain in operation until 
the final general peace was concluded. 

The request of Bulgaria for an armistice and 
peace, stunned Germany, which at that time 
was living in an atmosphere of political crisis 
and military misfortune. The German papers 
laid much of the blame on the desperate 
economic conditions in Bulgaria, which had 
been made worse by political strife. 

After the Bulgarian collapse the Serbians, 
with the other Allied troops who had just cap- 
tured Uskub, swept northward to drive the re- 
maining Germans and Austrians out of Serbia 
and beyond the Danube. On October 13th 
they captured Nish, thus cutting the famous 
Orient railroad from Berlin to Constantinople. 
German authorities announced that henceforth 
trains on this line would run only to the Ser- 
bian border. 

On October 4th King Ferdinand abdicated 
his throne in favor of his son Crown Prince 
Boris, and left Sofia the same night for Vienna. 
Before leaving he issued the following mani- 
festo : 



BULGARIA DESERTS 169 

By reason of the succession of events which have oc- 
curred in my kingdom, and which demand a sacrifice 
from each citizen, even to the surrendering of oneself for 
the well being of all, I desire to give as the first example 
the sacrifice of myself. Despite the sacred ties, which 
for thirty-two years have bound me so firmly to this 
country, for whose prosperity and greatness I have given 
all my powers, I have decided to renounce the royal Bul- 
garian crown in favor of my eldest son, His Highness 
the Prince Royal Boris of Tirnovo. I call upon all 
faithful subjects and true patriots to unite as one man 
about the throne of King Boris, to lift the country from 
its difficult situation, and to elevate new Bulgaria to the 
height to which it is predestined. 

Before signing his declaration of abdication 
he had consulted with the party leaders and 
received their approval. King Ferdinand had 
lost his popularity ever since it became appar- 
ent that he had made a mistake in siding with 
the Teutonic Powers. He was undoubtedly 
in fear that a revolution might upset the whole 
dynasty. Premier Malinoff announced the 
abdication to the Bulgarian Parliament, and 
the accession of Prince Boris to the throne was 
received with much enthusiasm. The church 
bells were rung, and great crowds gathered in 
the streets. 



170 THE WORLD WAR 

Speaking from the steps of the Palace the 
new King said: "I thank you for your mani- 
festation of patriotic sentiments. I have faith 
in the good star of Bulgaria, and I believe that 
the Bulgar people, by their good qualities and 
co-operation, are directed to a brilliant future." 
King Ferdinand, it was given out, had re- 
nounced politics and was intending in the fu- 
ture to devote himself to his favorite pursuits, 
chiefly to botany. 

The surrender of Bulgaria was at once recog- 
nized as the overthrow of Germany's "Mittel- 
Europa" threat, which had apparently been 
carried into effect when Turkey and Bulgaria 
joined the Central Powers. It had for a long 
time been one of Germany's most coveted aims. 
After the Franco-Prussian war the German 
people had grown enormously in wealth and in 
numbers. It had become one of the greatest 
manufacturing powers in the world. Its ships 
were transporting its commerce on every sea, 
but it was not satisfied. The German leaders, 
most of whom were young men at the time of 
the war with France, and had been deeply im- 



BULGARIA DESERTS 171 

pressed by a sense of the German power, were 
full of the idea that Germany was the greatest 
of nations, and that she should impress her 
will on all the world. 

They might have done this peacefully, for 
the seas were free, but German self-esteem was 
not satisfied with peaceful progress. They 
felt that it was necessary to reach out in the 
world for colonies. They seized a province in 
China. They meddled with affairs in Mo- 
rocco. They annexed colonies in Africa, but 
none of these projects were wholly satisfactoiy. 
They provided no great outlet for the products 
of their workshops, nor for their overflow popu- 
lation, which largely went to North and South 
America and became citizens of these foreign 
nations. 

Their eyes finally turned to the great East. 
There in China and India and the neighboring 
countries were three hundred millions of men 
whose trade would be a worthy prize for even 
Germany's ambition. Then began the devel- 
opment of what is sometimes called Germany's 
Mittel-Europa dream. Her scholars encour- 



172 



THE WORLD WAR 



aged it; her travelers brought reports which 
stimulated the interest, and soon she began 
practically to carry it into effect. It meant the 
building of a great railroad down to the Per- 




How the Pan-Germans Planned to Extend Their "Mittel- 
Europa" Dream 

sian Gulf; a railroad to be controlled by nations 
where her influence would be all-powerful. 
She needed Austria, she needed Serbia, she 
needed Bulgaria and Turkey. 

At first the project was carried out peace- 



BULGARIA DESERTS 173 

fully. Friendly relations were stimulated with 
Turkey and the other necessary powers; per- 
mits were obtained to build the railroad. But 
Germany was not the only power that had 
dreamed this dream. Alexander the Great 
had done it. Napoleon had done it, and Eng- 
land had carried it out. From the days of 
Queen Elizabeth the English control of India 
was one of its greatest assets. 

Through most of the nineteenth century the 
English power in the East was threatened, not 
by Germany, but by Russia. It was because 
of this threat that England had always pro- 
tected Turkey. Turkey and Constantinople 
were her barrier against Russia. The litera- 
ture of England in the last days of the nine- 
teenth century shows clearly her fear of Rus- 
sian intrigues in India. Kipling's Indian 
stories are full of it. But now that fear had 
passed. It was no longer the imaginary 
danger which might come from the great Slavic 
Empire, but a trade weapon in the grasp of the 
most efficient military power ever developed 
that was threatening. Against this threat 



174 THE WORLD WAR 

England had been doing her best. Here and 
there near the Persian Gulf she had been ex- 
tending her influence. Here and there, as 
German Consuls obtained concessions, they 
would find them later withdrawn, because Eng- 
land had stepped in. Yet just before the war, 
England, anxious for peace, had come to an 
agreement with Germany practically admitting 
the German plans to be carried out as far as 
Bagdad. 

It looked as though it were only a question 
of time, but when the Balkan wars established 
Serbia as the greatest of the Balkan powers, 
and gave Russia a preponderating influence 
among the Balkan nations, and when it began 
to look as if some great Balkan state might be 
established which should be friendly to Russia 
and consequently a hindrance to the German 
scheme, then it was that it was necessary that 
war should come. The Germans had been 
wonderfully successful. For a time they con- 
trolled Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia and Turkey, 
but with Bulgaria's fall the end of the Mittel- 
Europa dream had come. 



CHAPTER X 

The Central Empires Whine for Peace 

THE Allied victories in France during the 
months of August and September of 1918, 
led to a new peace offensive among the Cen- 
tral Powers. It was very plain to the Ger- 
man High Command, as well as to the Allied 
leaders, that Germany's great ambitions had 
now been definitely thwarted. It seems clear 
that, in spite of the hopeful and encouraging 
words which they addressed to their own armies, 
the expert soldiers, who were controlling the 
destinies of Germany, understood well the con- 
ditions they were facing. Putting aside all sen- 
timent, therefore, they deliberately set out to 
obtain a peace which would leave them an op- 
portunity to gain by diplomacy what they were 
sure that they were about to lose on the field 
of battle. They had made pleas for peace 
before, but their pleas had been rejected. 

175 



176 THE WORLD WAR 

The Allied leaders were fighting for a prin- 
ciple. They could not be satisfied with a draw. 
They could not be satisfied if Germany were 
left in a position which would enable her after 
a rest of a few years to renew her effort to im- 
pose her will upon the world. It was unan- 
imously recognized that the war must be car- 
ried on to the very end. The Allies took this 
position when the fortunes of war seemed to 
have gone against them, when Russia was de- 
feated, Roumania and Serbia crushed, and the 
German lines in France were approaching the 
capital. It was unlikely that now, when Ger- 
many was suffering defeat and every day was 
yielding the Allied armies encouraging gains, 
there should be any change in the strong de- 
termination of the Allied leaders. Neverthe- 
less, it was necessary to make the attempt. 

On September 15th, the Austro-Hungarian 
Government addressed a communication to the 
Allied Powers and to the Holy See suggesting 
a meeting for a confidential and non-binding 
discussion of war aims, with a view to the pos- 
sible calling of a peace conference. 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 177 

The official communication from the Austro- 
Hungarian Government was handed to Sec- 
retary of State Lansing in Washington at 
6.20 o'clock on September 16th. 

At 6.45 the following abbreviated reply of 
the United States Government was made pub- 
lic, by the Secretary of State : 

I am authorized by the President to state that the fol- 
lowing will be the reply of this government to the Aus- 
tro-Hungarian note proposing an unofficial conference of 
belligerents. "The Government of the United States 
feels that there is only one reply which it can make to 
the suggestion of the Austro-Hungarian Government. 
It has repeatedly and with entire candor stated the 
terms upon which the United States would consider 
peace, and can and will entertain no proposal for a con- 
ference upon the matter concerning which it has made 
its position and purpose so plain." 

Arthur J. Balfour, the British Foreign Sec- 
retary, in a statement made September 16th 
said : "It is incredible that anything can come 
of this proposal. . . . This cynical proposal 
of the Austrian Government is not a genuine 
attempt to obtain peace. It is an attempt to 
divide the Allies." Premier Clemenceau in 
France took similar grounds, and stated in the 

5—12 



178 THE WORLD WAR 

French Senate: "We will fight until the hour 
when the enemy comes to understand that bar- 
gaining between crime and right is no longer 
possible. We want a just and a strong peace, 
protecting the future against the abominations 
of the past." Italy joined with her Allies and 
declared that a negotiated peace was impos- 
sible. 

The refusal on the part of the Allies to re- 
spond to the Austrian peace proposal evidently 
greatly disturbed the German leaders. The 
continued German reverses, and the surrender 
of Bulgaria had taken away all hope. They 
were anxious to conclude some kind of peace 
before meeting irretrievable disaster. They 
therefore determined to appoint as Chancellor 
of the Empire some statesman who might be 
represented as a supporter of an honest peace, 
and Count von Hertling, whose previous ut- 
terances might put under suspicion any peace 
move coming from him, was removed and 
Prince Maximilian of Baden appointed as his 
successor on September 30th. 

Prince Maximilian was put forward as a 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 179 

Moderate, in accordance with the evident pur- 
pose of the government to continue peace pro- 
posals. He was the heir apparent to the 
Grand Ducal throne of Baden, and was the 
first man in public life in Germany to declare 
that the Empire could not conquer by the sword 
alone. He did this in an address to the Upper 
Chamber in Baden, of which he was President, 
on December 15, 1917. * Tower alone can 
never secure our position," he said, "and our 
sword alone will never be able to tear down 
the opposition to us." 

At the same time he made an attack upon the 
ideals set up by President Wilson. "Presi- 
dent Wilson," he continued, "after three years 
of war gathers together all the outworn slogans 
of the Entente of 1914, and denounces Ger- 
many as the disturber of the peace, proclaim- 
ing a crusade for humanity, liberty and the 
rights of small nations." Then, forgetting 
that the United States had entered the war 
nearly a month after the abdication of the Czar 
of Russia, he added: "President Wilson has 
no right to speak in the name of democracy and 



180 THE WORLD WAR 

liberty, for he was the mighty war ally of 
Russian Czardom, but he had deaf ears when 
the Russian democracy appealed to him to al- 
low it to discuss peace conditions." The 
Baden address created a great sensation all 
over Germany, which was increased when in 
an interview in January he declared that all 
ideas of conquest must be abandoned, and that 
Germany must serve as a bulwark to prevent 
the spread of Bolshevism among the western 
nations. 

There can be no doubt that the appointment 
of Prince Maximilian was a definite attempt to 
seek peace. It was thought that he would be 
recognized by the Allied leaders as an honest 
friend of peace, and that any effort he would 
make would be treated with respect. He was, 
however, a vigorous supporter of the Kaiser 
and of German autocracy, and while his ap- 
pointment might mean that Germany was de- 
sirous of peace it did not mean that she had 
changed her ways. Three days before the ap- 
pointment of Prince Maximilian, President 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 181 

Wilson in an address delivered in the Metro- 
politan Opera House in New York, had re- 
stated the issues of the war, declaring ( 1 ) for 
impartial justice, (2) no leagues within the 
common family of the league of nations, (3) 
no selfish economic combination within that 
league, and (4) all international agreements 
and treaties of every kind must be made known 
in their entirety to the rest of the world. 

Prince Maximilian, coming into power un- 
doubtedly for the purpose of arranging a peace, 
proceeded at once to make a new peace offer. 
He based his action on President Wilson's 
speech and on October 4th sent to President 
Wilson, through the Swiss Government, the 
following note: 

The German Government requests the President of 
the United States to take in hand the restoration of 
peace, acquaint all the belligerent states with this re- 
quest, and invite them to send plenipotentiaries for the 
purpose of opening negotiations. It accepts the pro- 
gram set forth by the President of the United States in 
his message to Congress on January 8th, and in his later 
pronouncements, especially his speech of September 
27th, as a basis for peace negotiations. With a view to 



182 THE WORLD WAR 

avoiding further bloodshed the German Government re- 
quests the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land 
and on water and in the air. 

He followed this note on October 5th with 
an address before the German Reichstag, of 
which the following are the most important 
points : 

In accordance with the Imperial decree of September 
30th, the German Empire has undergone a basic altera- 
tion of its politic leadership. As successor to Count 
George F. von Hertling, whose services in behalf of the 
Fatherland deserve the highest acknowledgment, I have 
been summoned by the Emperor to lead the new govern- 
ment. In accordance with the governmental method 
now introduced I submit to the Reichstag, publicly and 
without delay, the principles by which I propose to con- 
duct the grave responsibilities of the office. These prin- 
ciples were firmly established by the agreement of the 
federated governments and the leaders of the Majority 
Parties in this honorable House before I decided to as- 
sume the duties of Chancellor. They contain therefore 
not only my own confession of political faith, but that 
of an overwhelming portion of the German people's 
representatives — that is, of the German nation — which 
has constituted the Reichstag on the basis of a general, 
equal, and secret franchise and according to their will. 

Only the fact that I know the conviction and will of 
the majority of the people are back of me, has given me 
strength to take upon myself conduct of the Empire's 
affairs in this hard and earnest time in which we are 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 183 

living. One man's shoulders would be too weak to carry 
alone the tremendous responsibility which falls upon the 
government at present. Only if the people take active 
part in the broader sense of the word in deciding their 
destinies, in other words, if responsibility also extends 
to the majority of their freely elected political leaders, 
can the leading statesman confidently assume his part of 
the responsibility in the service of folk and Fatherland. 

My resolve to this has been especially lightened for 
me by the fact that prominent leaders of the laboring 
class have found a way in the new government to the 
highest offices of the Empire. I see therein a sure guar- 
antee that the new government will be supported by the 
confidence of the broad masses of the people, without 
whose true support the whole undertaking would be 
compelled to failure in advance. Hence what I say to- 
day is not only in my own name, and those of my official 
helpers, but in the name of the German people. 

The program of the majority parties, upon which I 
take my stand, contains first, an acceptance of the an- 
swer of the former Imperial Government to Pope Bene- 
dict's note of August 1, 1916, and an unconditional ac- 
ceptance of the Reichstag resolution of July 19th, the 
same year. It further declares willingness to join the 
general league of nations based on the foundation of 
equal rights for all, both strong and weak. It considers 
the solution of the Belgian question to lie in the complete 
rehabilitation of Belgium, particularly of its independ- 
ence and territorial integrity. An effort shall also be 
made to reach an understanding on the question of in- 
demnity. 

The program will not permit the peace treaties hith- 



184 THE WORLD WAR 

erto concluded to be a hindrance to the conclusion of the 
general peace. Its particular aim is that popular repre- 
sentative bodies shall be formed immediately on a broad 
basis in the Baltic provinces, in Lithuania and Poland. 
We will promote the realization of necessary preliminary 
conditions therefore without delay by the introduction of 
civilian rule. All these lands shall regulate their con- 
stitutions and their relations with neighboring peoples 
without external interference. 

He went on to point out the progressive po- 
litical developments in Prussia and declared 
that the "Message of the King of Prussia 
promising the democratic franchise must be 
fulfilled quickly and completely." 

President Wilson did not find Prince Maxi- 
milian's proposal wholly satisfactory, and on 
October 8th he sent a reply in which, after 
acknowledging the receipt of the proposal, he 
inquired of the Imperial Chancellor whether 
the meaning of the proposal was that the Ger- 
man Government accepted the terms laid down 
in his address to the Congress of the United 
States and in subsequent addresses; and 
whether its object in entering into discussions 
would be only to agree upon the practical de- 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 185 

tails of their application. He also suggested 
that so long as the armies of the Central Powers 
were upon the soil of the governments with 
which the United States was associated, he 
would not feel at liberty to propose a cessation 
of arms to those governments. He also in- 
quired whether the Imperial Chancellor was 
speaking merely for the constituted authorities 
of the Empire, who had so far conducted the 
war. 

President Wilson's reply aroused much dif- 
ference of opinion among the Allies, but on the 
whole was regarded as a clever diplomatic 
move. 

The German Government responded to these 
questions of the President on October 12th, 
by a message signed by Dr. W. S. Solf, who 
had just been appointed Imperial Foreign Sec- 
retary. In this reply the German Govern- 
ment declared that it did accept President Wil- 
son's terms; that it was ready to comply with 
the suggestion of the President and withdraw 
its troops from Allied territory, and that the 



186 THE WORLD WAR 

German Government was representing in all 
its actions the will of the great majority of 
the German people. 

Germany had, indeed, made enormous con- 
cessions, and the German people appeared to 
have taken for granted that such an offer would 
be accepted. An Amsterdam despatch de- 
clared: "People in Berlin are kissing one an- 
other in the street, though they are perfect 
strangers and shouting peace congratulations 
to each other. The only words heard any- 
where in Germany are 'Peace at last.' " 

The President, however, had been struck by 
the news coming in from day to day of new 
atrocities in France, and of new cases of sub- 
marine murders, and in his reply of October 
14th, he declared that while he was ready to 
refer the question of an armistice to the judg- 
ment and advice of military advisers of the 
government of the United States and the Al- 
lied governments, he felt sure that none of 
those governments would consent to consider 
an armistice as long as the armed forces of 
Germany continued the illegal and inhuman 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 187 

practices which they were persisting in. He 
also emphasized the fact that no armistice 
would be accepted that would not provide ab- 
solutely satisfactory safeguards and guaran- 
tees of the maintenance of the military suprem- 
acy of the armies of the United States and of 
the Allies in the field. The President also 
called the attention of the Government of Ger- 
many to that clause of his address on the 
Fourth of July in which he had demanded "the 
destruction of every arbitrary power that can 
separately, secretly and of its single choice 
disturb the peace of the world, or, if it cannot 
be presently destroyed, at least its reduction 
to virtual impotency." He declared that the 
power which had hitherto controlled the Ger- 
man nation was of the sort thus described, and 
that its alteration actually constituted a condi- 
tion precedent to peace. 

This answer of the President was greeted 
with approval in the United States and every- 
where in the Allied countries. It meant that 
the Imperial Power of Germany was not to be 
allowed to hide itself behind a so-called reor- 



188 THE WORLD WAR 

ganization done under its own direction. As 
one of the Senators of the United States ex- 
pressed it : "It is an unequivocal demand that 
the Hohenzollerns shall get out." 

During these negotiations the Allied armies 
under Marshal Foch had been driving the 
enemy before them. When Baron Burian 
was making his peace offer on behalf of Aus- 
tria-Hungary the Americans were engaged in 
pinching off the St. Mihiel salient, and about 
that date the British were launching their great 
attack on the St. Quentin defenses. The re- 
ports of the great Allied drive indicated a con- 
stant succession of Allied victories. 

On September 19th, the British advanced 
into the Hindenburg line, northwest of St. 
Quentin, and on September 20th, while the 
American guns were shelling Metz, the Brit- 
ish were advancing steadily near Cambrai and 
La Bassee. 

Day by day the advance proceeded. On 
September 26th, the first American army 
smashed through the Hindenburg line for an 
average gain of seven miles, between the Meuse 



THE WHINE FOR PEACE 189 

and the Aisne Rivers on a twenty-mile front. 
On September 27th, the French gained five 
miles in an advance east of Rheims, and the 
British were attacking in the Cambrai sector on 
a fourteen-mile front, crossing the Canal du 
Nord and piercing the Hindenburg line at 
several points. On September 28th, the 
Americans reached the Kriemhilde line, while 
the British were close in on Cambrai. On 
September 30th, the British took Messines 
Ridge, while the French were still advancing 
between the Aisne and Vesle Rivers. On 
October 1st, the French troops entered St. 
Quentin and the British took the northern and 
western suburbs of Cambrai. During the next 
week an enveloping movement was instituted 
north and south of Lille. On October 5th, 
the Germans evacuated Lille, on October 9th 
the British took Cambrai. 

In these drives the American colored troops 
played a conspicuous part. The entire Three 
hundred and sixty-fifth regiment, composed 
wholly of colored troops, was later awarded 
the coveted Croix de Guerre, or War Cross, 



190 THE WORLD WAR 

by the French Government. It was a well- 
deserved honor, for the boys of the Three hun- 
dred and sixty-fifth bore themselves with great 
gallantry in the September and October offen- 
sive in the Champagne sector and suffered 
heavy losses. In conferring the Croix de 
Guerre, the citation dealt in considerable de- 
tail with the valor of particular officers and 
praised the courage and tenacity of the whole 
regiment. 

The Germans were retreating in Belgium 
day by day, under the attacks of the Belgian 
and French armies. On October 11th the 
Germans evacuated the Chemin des Dames. 
On October 16th the Germans began the evac- 
uation of the Belgian coast region and each day 
increased the number of Belgian towns once 
more in Allied control. 



CHAPTER XI 

Battles in the Ant 

HE who conquers the fear of death is mas- 
ter of his fate. Upon this philosophy 
fifty thousand young men of the warring na- 
tions went forth to do battle among the clouds. 
The story of these battles is the real romance 
of the World War. In 1914 no one had ever 
known and history had never recorded a strug- 
gle to the death in the air. When the war 
ended a new literature of adventure had been 
created, a literature emblazoned with superb 
heroisms, with God-like daring, and with such 
utter disdain of death that they were raised 
out of the olden ranks of mere earth-crawling 
mankind and became supermen of the air. 

Some of these heroic names became house- 
hold words during the war. These were the 
aces of the French, American and German air- 
forces. The British adopted a policy in news 

191 



192 THE WORLD WAR 

concerning their airmen similar to that govern- 
ing their publication of submarine sinkings. 
They argued that the naming of British, Cana- 
dian and Australian aces would direct the 
attacks of German aviators against the most 
useful men in the British forces. They also 
felt that publicity would tend toward the 
swagger which in English slang was "swank" 
and toward a deterioration in discipline. 

Raoul Luf berry, Quentin Roosevelt, son of 
ex-President Roosevelt, and Edward Ricken- 
bacher were names that figured extensively in 
news of the American Air forces. 

Lufberry and Roosevelt were killed in ac- 
tion. Rickenbacher, after dozens of hair-rais- 
ing escapes from death, came through the war 
without injury. The pioneer of American 
aviators in the war was William Thaw of Yale, 
who formed the original Lafayette Escadrille. 

Besides these men, America produced a num- 
ber of other brilliant aces, an ace being one 
who brought down five enemy planes, each 
victory being attested by at least three wit- 
nesses. 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 193 

The French had as their outstanding aces 
Georges Guynemer and Rene Fonck. Guy- 
nemer went into the flying game as a mechani- 
cian. He became the most formidable human 
fighting machine on the western front before 
he was sent to death in a blazing airplane. 

Lieut. Rene Fonck ended the war with a 
total of seventy-five official aerial victories. 
He had an additional forty Huns to his credit 
but not officially confirmed. His greatest day 
was when he brought down six planes. His 
quickest work was the shooting down of three 
Germans in twenty seconds. 

He fought three distinct battles in the air 
when, on May 8, 1918, he brought down six 
German airplanes in one day. All three en- 
gagements were fought within two hours. In 
all, Fonck fired only fifty-six shots, an average 
of little more than nine bullets for each enemy 
brought down — an extraordinary record, in 
view of the fact that aviators often fired hun- 
dreds of rounds without crippling their op- 
ponent. 

The first fight, in which Lieutenant Fonck 

5—13 



194 THE WORLD WAR 

brought down three German machines, lasted 
only a minute and a half, and the young 
Frenchman gained his victory at the expense 
of only twenty-two shots. 

Fonck was leading two other companions on 
a patrol in the Moreuil-Montdidier sector on 
May 8th, when the French squadron met three 
German two-seater airplanes coming toward 
them in arrow formation. Signaling to his 
companions, Lieutenant Fonck dived at the 
leading German plane and with a few shots 
sent it down in flames. Fonck turned to the 
left, and the second enemy flier followed in an 
effort to attack him from behind, but the 
Frenchman made a quick turn above him and, 
with five shots, sent the second German to 
death. Ten seconds had barely elapsed be- 
tween the two victories. 

The third enemy pilot headed for home, but 
when Lieutenant Fonck apparently gave up 
the chase and turned back toward the French 
lines the German went after him, and was 
flying parallel and a little below, when Fonck 
made a quick turn, drove straight at him and 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 195 

sent him down within half a mile of the spot 
where his two comrades hit the earth. 

The German heroes were the celebrated 
Captain Boelke, and the no less famous inven- 
tor of the "flying circus," Count von Richt- 
hofen. Captain Boelke caused a great many 
Allied "crashes" by hiding in clouds and div- 
ing straight at planes flying beneath him. As 
he came within range, he opened up with a 
stream of machine-gun bullets. If he failed to 
get his prey, his rush carried him past his op- 
ponent into safety. He rarely re-attacked. 
Count von Richthofen was responsible for 
many airplane squadron tactics that later were 
used on both sides. The planes under his 
command were gaily painted for easy identifi- 
cation during the thick of a fight. Their usual 
method was to cut off single planes or small 
groups of Allied planes, and to circle around 
them in the method employed by Admiral 
Dewey for the reduction of the Spanish forts 
and ships in the Battle of Manila Bay. 

The dangers of aerial warfare were instru- 
mental in producing high chivalry in all 



196 THE WORLD WAR 

the encampments of airmen. Graves of fallen 
aviators were marked and decorated by their 
former foes and captured aviators received ex- 
ceptionally good treatment, where foemen 
aviators could procure such treatment for them. 

Until the advent of America into the war, 
neither side had a marked advantage in air- 
craft. At first Germany had a slight advan- 
tage; then the balance swung to the Allied 
side; but at no time was the scale tipped very 
much. American quantity production of air- 
planes, however, gave to the Entente Allies an 
overwhelming advantage. Final standardiza- 
tion of tools and design for the "Soul of the 
American Airplane" was not accomplished un- 
til February, 1918. Yet within eight months 
more than 15,000 Liberty engines, each of 
them fully tested and of the highest quality, 
were delivered. 

The United States did not follow European 
types of engines, but in a wonderfully short 
time developed an engine standardized in the 
most recent efficiency of American industries. 

According to Secretary of War Baker, an 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 197 

inspiring feature of this work was the aid ren- 
dered by consulting engineers and motor man- 
ufacturers, who gave up their trade secrets un- 
der the emergency of war needs. Realizing 
that the new design would be a government 
design and no firm or individual would reap 
selfish benefit because of its making, the motor 
manufacturers, nevertheless, patriotically re- 
vealed their trade secrets and made available 
trade processes of great commercial value. 
These industries also contributed the services 
of approximately two hundred of their best 
draftsmen. Parts of the first engine were 
turned out at twelve different factories, located 
all the way from Connecticut to California. 
When the parts were assembled the adjustment 
was perfect and the performance of the engine 
was wonderfully gratifying. 

Thirty days after the assembling of the first 
engine preliminary tests justified the govern- 
ment in formally accepting the engine as the 
best aircraft engine produced in any country. 
The final tests confirmed the faith in the new 
motor. 



198 THE WORLD WAR 

British and French machines as a rule were 
not adapted to American manufacturing meth- 
ods. They were highly specialized machines, 
requiring much hand work from mechanics, 
who were, in fact, artisans. 

The standardized United States aviation 
engine, produced under government supervi- 
sion, said Secretary of War Baker, was ex- 
pected "to solve the problem of building first- 
class, powerful and yet comparatively delicate 
aviation engines by American machine meth- 
ods — the same standardized methods which rev- 
olutionized the automobile industry in this 
country." 

The manufacture of De Haviland airplanes 
equipped with Liberty motors was a factor in 
the war. One of these De Havilands without 
tuning up, made a non-stop trip on November 
11, 1918, from Dayton, Ohio, to Washington, 
D. C, a distance of 430 miles, in three hours 
and fifty minutes. Great battle squadrons of 
these De Haviland planes equipped with Lib- 
erty motors made bombing raids over the Ger- 
man lines in the Verdun sector. Others oper- 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 199 

ated as scouting and reconnaissance planes and 
as spotters for American artillery. 

In the period from September 12th to 11 
o'clock on the morning of November 11th, the 
American aviators brought down 473 German 
machines. Of this number, 353 were con- 
firmed officially. Day bombing groups, from 
the time they began operations, dropped a total 
of 116,818 kilograms of bombs within the Ger- 
man lines. 

Bombing operations were begun in August 
by the 96th Squadron, which in five flying days 
dropped 18,080 kilograms of bombs. The first 
day bombardment group began work in Sep- 
tember, the group including the 96th, the 20th 
and 11th Squadrons. The 166th Squadron 
joined the group in November. 

In twelve flying days in September the 
bombers dropped 3,466 kilograms of bombs ; in 
fifteen flying days in October 46,133 kilograms, 
and in four flying days in November, 17,979 
kilograms. 

On November 11th, the day of the signing of 
the armistice, there were actually engaged on 



200 THE WORLD WAR 

the front 740 American planes, 744 pilots, 457 
observers and 23 aerial gunners. 

Of the total number of planes, 329 were of 
the pursuit type, 296 were for observation and 
115 were bombers. In addition, several hun- 
dred planes of various types were being used 
at the instruction camps when the war ended. 

America, although the last of the great na- 
tions to embark upon a great aircraft produc- 
tion program, was the birthplace of the air- 
plane, the Wright brothers being the undis- 
puted inventors of the modern type. 

Wilbur and Orville Wright made their first 
experiments in flying at Kittyhawk, N. C. 
^heir first attempts were of a gliding nature 
and were accomplished by starting from the 
top of a dune or sandhill, the operator lying 
full length, face downward on the under plane 
of the machine. During these experiments 
they succeeded in flying six hundred feet. 

Their first flight with an airplane driven by 
a motor was on December 17, 1903, when they 
succeeded in flying about two hundred and sev- 
enty yards in fifty-nine seconds. This ma- 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 201 

chine was driven by a sixteen-horse-power mo- 
tor. 

Santos Dumont was one of the early pioneers 
in aeronautical experiments. After showing a 
marked talent with balloons, he turned his at- 
tention to heavier-than-air machines, and in 
1906 created a world's record in a flight of 230 
yards at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour. 

In 1907 Henry Farnum made a half circular 
flight in a Voisin biplane, using a fifty-horse- 
power motor, returning to his starting point. 
About this time a flight of nine minutes and fif- 
teen seconds was recorded by Delagrande on a 
Voisin constructed biplane. 

The first previously announced public flight 
was made on July 4, 1908, by Glenn H. Curtiss 
at Hammondsport, N. Y., and was witnessed 
by a number of New Yorkers who had gone to 
Hammondsport to see the flight. 

In the winter of 1913-14 Mr. Rodman Wan- 
amaker gave Glenn H. Curtiss a commission to 
build a flying boat which would fly across the 
Atlantic. Commander Porte was brought 
from England, and he, with Mr. Curtiss, 



202 THE WORLD WAR 

worked out the designs for a flying boat much 
larger than any previously built, and fitted 
with two motors instead of one. As entirely 
separate power plants would be used, one mo- 
tor w T ould naturally run somewhat faster than 
the other, and it was freely predicted that the 
machine could not be handled. The first trial, 
however, proved that it would not only fly, but 
that after it was once in the air, one motor could 
be slowed down and even stopped and the ma- 
chine continue to fly. This machine was the 
forerunner of the seaplane, used by the Amer- 
ican, British and other navies in the war, al- 
though somewhat changed in detail. The be- 
ginning of the war stopped the transatlantic 
experiments and this machine found its way 
into the British navy. It was christened the 
"America," and the larger flying boats or sea- 
planes which are now being built and used by 
the British and American navies are still known 
as the "America" or super- American type. 

At first fighting operations were carried out 
by individual aviators or comparatively small 
squadrons, but the battles of March, 1918, wit- 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 203 

nessed the definite development of larger 
squadrons, maneuvering as effectively as bod- 
ies of cavalry, and in massed formation attack- 
ing infantry columns. The possibilities of the 
new aerial arm were further demonstrated in 
the creation of a barrage, as effective as that 
of heavy artillery, for the purpose of holding 
back advising bodies of infantry. 

In the first days of the German offensive 
there took place an aerial battle which up to 
that time was unique in the annals of war- 
fare. 

It was a battle not merely for the purpose of 
gaining the mastery of the air, but to aid Al- 
lied infantry and artillery in stemming the tide 
of the German advance, and when the drive 
finally slowed down and came to a halt in 
Picardy, the Allied airmen had undoubtedly 
contributed largely to the result. 

During March 21 and 22, 1918 — the open- 
ing days of the great German drive — there 
was comparatively little aerial activity. The 
aviators of both sides were preparing for the 
impending battle, which actually began on the 



204 THE WORLD WAR 

morning of March 23d and lasted all that day 
and the day following. 

The story of the air battle of March 23d- 
24th reads like one of the most extraordinary 
adventure tales ever imagined. The struggle 
began with squadrons of airplanes ascending 
and maneuvering as perfectly as cavalry. 
They rose to dizzy heights, and, descending 
swept the air close to the ground. The indi- 
vidual pilots of the opposing sides then began 
executing all manner of movements, climbing, 
diving, turning in every direction, and seeking 
to get into the best position to pour machine- 
gun fire into enemy airplanes. Every few 
minutes a machine belonging to an Allied or 
German squadron crashed to the ground, often 
in flames. At the end of the first day's fight- 
ing wrecked airplanes and the mangled bodies 
of aviators lay strewn all over the battle-field. 

All next day, March 24th, the struggle in the 
air went on with unabated fury. The Allied 
air squadrons were now on the offensive and 
penetrated far inside the German lines. The 
German aviators counter-attacked whenever 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 205 

they could, and more than once succeeded in 
crossing the French lines. But at the close of 
the second day victory rested with the Allied 
airmen, and during the next five scarcely a 
German airplane took the air. 

The sudden termination of the war caused 
speculation throughout the world concerning 
the future of the airplane. When rumor de- 
clared that America's newly -won pre-eminence 
in aviation would disappear, Captain Roy N. 
Francis, of the Division of Military Aeronau- 
tics, made this statement : 

America cannot afford to junk the airplane fleet which 
has cost her so many millions of dollars. I do not be- 
lieve that any other nation will do so. Even if the peace 
congress should decide on universal disarmament, there 
are still any number of uses to which airplanes can be 
put in time of peace. 

Take the air mail service, for instance. This is now 
only in its infancy, but it is destined to become as com- 
mon as the railway mail service. It will employ hun- 
dreds of airplanes and aviators all over the country. 

Then there is the possibility of our machines being 
used for sea-coast patrol work, a valuable addition to 
our coast-guard forces which save many ocean vessels 
from disaster every year. 

They will be largely used for army dispatch work. 



206 THE WORLD WAR 

Instead of sending official messages from post to post by 
the present methods, airplanes will be used after the war 
as they are now being used at the front. 

On the Great Lakes, airplanes can be used for coast- 
guard work, as on the seacoast, and they can also be used 
for patrolling the lakes themselves. Think how many 
wrecked lake vessels might have been saved in the past 
had there been an airplane nearby to carry its message 
of distress and guide rescue ships to the scene. 

Forest patrol is still another opening for the use of 
expert aviators. Every year, almost, our great forest 
fires in the northwest demonstrate that our present meth- 
ods of prevention of forest fires are faulty; chiefly be- 
cause the fires are not discovered while they are still 
smoldering. Constant airplane patrol over our great 
forests would make forest fires a thing of the past. 

Then there are any number of commercial uses to 
which airplanes can be put. Instead of a cargo of 
bombs, a commercial airplane could carry a cargo of 
small package freight for which immediate delivery is 
necessary. 

The use of the airplane for passenger carrying is now 
being developed. The huge Caproni and Handley-Page 
machines will be used for this purpose in the future. 
Thousands of persons will want to fly just for the nov- 
elty, and the possibility of accidents will be reduced to 
the minimum. 

Again, there is the need for scientific research and 
improvement of the airplane, which will keep scores of 
men and machines busy for years. 

It will not be necessary, of course, to maintain the 
numerous government training fields for aviators after 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 207 

the war, but some of the best of them should be re- 
tained. I do not believe it will be necessary to dis- 
charge a single pilot or observer from the army or to 
junk a single undamaged airplane after the war. 

Henry Woodhouse, Governor of the Aero 
Club of America and a world-wide authority 
on aeronautics, made the following forecast : 

Aircraft capable of lifting fifteen tons, with a speed 
of one hundred miles an hour, are now in actual pro- 
duction. The first of the American-built Caproni planes, 
equipped with four Liberty motors and developing 1,750 
horse-power has just been successfully tested. This 
giant plane has a total lifting capacity of 40,000 pounds, 
or twenty tons. The super-Handley-Page or the 
Caproni could easily carry fifty bags, or more than a 
ton of mail. This means 100,000 letters. Judging the 
future development of aircraft by what has taken place 
in the last two years, we may look for the building of a 
5,000-horse-power airplane, possibly within a year. 

If the people of the various cities along the eight 
great air-ways already proposed insist on it, at least a 
dozen additional aerial mail lines can be established 
within twelve months. This can be done by utilizing 
only machines not needed by the army or navy. That 
means it will be possible to send by postplane at least 
50,000,000 of the 100,000,000 day and night letters, and 
at least 25,000,000 of the 50,000,000 special delivery 
letters that are sent each year in the United States. 

Postoffice officials estimate that the average cost of 
telegraphic day and night letters now going over the 



208 THE WORLD WAR 

wires is close to one dollar each. Special delivery let- 
ters average about thirteen cents apiece. 

This makes a total of more than fifty million dollars' 
worth of potential aerial mail business that is simply 
waiting for the establishment of aerial mail routes which 
can easily be established within the next twelve months. 

Four hundred miles is the distance over which post- 
plane day mail is most effective. Aerial mail letters are 
effective over any distance, since, with proper stations, 
light signals and guides for night postplane flying, the 
air mail can be carried more than one thousand miles 
between the hours of 6 p. m. and 8 a. m. 

The cost of aerial mail night and day letters will be 
less than that of wire communication. The cost of an 
aerial mail letter is sixteen cents for two ounces. For 
this price there can be sent a message that would cost 
five dollars to send by telegraph. 

The estimate of $50,000,000 of potential postplane 
business takes no account of the possibilities of trans- 
porting parcel post aerial mail. One of the Caproni 
2,100-horse-power machines now in operation could 
easily transport 2,500 pounds of mail. At least $25,- 
000,000 worth of parcel post could be sent by airplane. 

Enthusiasts who look forward to the transatlantic 
transportation of aerial mail as certain to come within 
the next twelve-month assert that there is another twen- 
ty-five million dollars' worth of transatlantic mail wait- 
ing for an aerial mail service. They point out that 
Uncle Sam now pays eighty cents a pound to American 
steamships to carry transatlantic mail and that a charge 
of $1 per letter across the Atlantic would be a paying 
proposition. 



BATTLES IN THE AIR 209 

Charges of mismanagement and graft were 
investigated by the United States Senate and 
by the Department of Justice. Former Jus- 
tice of the United States Supreme Court 
Charles E. Hughes was named by President 
Wilson to conduct the latter inquiry. Waste 
was found, due largely to the emergency na- 
ture of the contract. Justice Hughes recom- 
mended that Col. Edward Deeds, of the 
United States Signal Corps, be tried by court 
martial for his connection with certain con- 
tracts, and recommended that several other 
persons be tried in the United States courts. 
Justice Hughes and the Senate Investigation 
Committee gave their unqualified approval to 
the management of America's aircraft produc- 
tion by John D. Ryan. Mr. Ryan resigned 
his charge as head of the Aircraft Production 
Board in November, 1918. His last public 
announcement was of the invention of an aerial 
telephone, by which the commander of a squad- 
ron standing on the ground could communi- 
cate with aviators flying in battle formation. 

5—14 



CHAPTER XII 

Health and Happiness of ths American 
Forces 

SINCE the fateful day when Cain slew 
Abel, thereby setting a precedent for 
human warfare, no fighter has been so well pro- 
tected f ^om disease and discomfort of mind and 
body, so speedily cured of his wounds, as the 
American soldier and sailor during the World 
War. 

The basis of this remarkable achievement 
was sanitary education preached first by com- 
petent physicians and sociologists; then by 
newspapers to the civilian population ; and ulti- 
mately by the soldiers and sailors themselves, 
each man acting as an evangel of personal and 
community health and sanitation. In 1914, 
before war was declared, the words "venereal 
diseases" were relegated to the advertisements 

of quacks and patent medicines. When the 

210 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 211 

war ended, virtually every young and old man 
and woman knew the meaning of the words 
and the miseries that come in their train. So 
it was with other details of the care of the hu- 
man body, with sewage problems, with the 
grave community question of pure water, with 
the use of intoxicating beverages, and with 
other problems inter-woven with the health and 
happiness of humanity. 

Among the leaders in this wide-flung cam- 
paign of education was the American Red 
Cross. Starting with a mere nominal member- 
ship before the war, its roster rose to the 
mighty total of more than 28,000,000 Ameri- 
can men, women and children when the war 
ended. More than $300,000,000 was poured 
into the American Red Cross treasury. In ad- 
dition to these contributions of money, came 
the free services of millions of Americans, 
mostly women. Red Cross workshops dotted 
the land, and from these came bandages, sweat- 
ers, comfort-kits, trench necessities, clothing 
for homeless refugees, and a vast quantity of 
material aid in every conceivable form. 



212 THE WORLD WAR 

American Red Cross workers during the war 
knitted 14,089,000 garments for the army and 
navy. In addition, the workers turned out 
253,196,000 surgical dressings, 22,255,000 hos- 
pital garments and 1,464,000 refugee gar- 
ments. Sewing chapters repaired old clothing 
and sent it overseas to the orphaned and the 
widowed, and millions of Americans learned 
the sublime lesson of sacrifice through the Red 
Cross — a lesson that left its imprint upon 
America for generations. 

The work of the American Red Cross ex- 
tended through many lands. It followed the 
flags of the Entente Allies into Palestine, 
Mesopotamia, India, South Africa, and other 
battle-grounds. Its work on the western 
front was a miracle of achievement. In Rus- 
sia through the Red Terror of the Revolution 
the workers of the American Red Cross went 
serenely about their tasks of mercy, relieving 
the hungry, aiding the sick, and clothing the 
ragged peasants. 

Henry P. Davidson left the firm of J. P. 
Morgan & Company to devote his administra- 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 213 

tive genius to the affairs of the American Red 
Cross. Other men and women of rare execu- 
tive ability joined in the free tender of their 
services to the work of the Red Cross. 

While the organization strove mightily 
against famines, wounds and disease overseas, 
it was suddenly confronted during the period 
from September 8th to November 9th, 1918, 
with the severest epidemic America had ex- 
perienced in generations. Returning Ameri- 
can troops brought the germs of the malady 
known as "Spanish influenza" into New York 
and Boston. Thence it spread throughout the 
country. During its brief career the epidemic 
claimed a total of 82,306 deaths in forty-six 
American cities, having a combined population 
of 23,000,000. Philadelphia, a great center of 
war industry, with the Philadelphia Navy 
Yard harboring thousands of sailors and 
marines, showed the highest mortality in pro- 
portion to population, 7.4 per 1,000; Baltimore 
with 6.7 per 1,000 showed the next greatest 
mortality. 

The record of the Red Cross in this epidemic 



214 THE WORLD WAR 

was one of instant service. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of masks were made in Red Cross work- 
rooms, and these were worn by nurses and by 
members of families in afflicted homes. 

On May 1, 1917, just before the appoint- 
ment of the War Council, the American Red 
Cross had 486,194 members working through 
562 chapters. On July 31, 1918, the organ- 
ization numbered 20,648,103 annual members, 
besides 8,000,000 members of the Junior Red 
Cross — a total enrolment of over one-fourth 
the population of the United States. These 
members carried on their Red Cross work 
through 3,854 chapters, which again divided 
themselves into some 30,000 branches and aux- 
iliaries. 

The total actual collections from the first 
war fund amounted to more than $115,000,000. 
The subscriptions to the second war fund 
amounted to upward of $176,000,000. From 
membership dues the collections approximated 
$24,500,000. 

The Home Service of the Red Cross with its 
more than 40,000 workers, extended its minis- 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 215 

trations of sympathy and counsel each month 
to upward of 100,000 families left behind by 
soldiers at the front. 

Supplementing, but not duplicating, the 
work of the American Red Cross, were the 
services of the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., 
Knights of Columbus, Jewish Welfare Asso- 
ciation, Salvation Army, American Library 
Association and other bodies. 

These operated under the general super- 
vision of the War and Navy departments: 
Commissions on Training Camp Activities. 
Raymond B. Fosdick was the chairman of both 
these bodies. Concerning these commissions, 
President Wilson declared : 

I do not believe it an exaggeration to say that no army 
ever before assembled has had more conscientious and 
painstaking thought given to the protection and stimu- 
lation of its mental, moral and physical manhood. 
Every endeavor has been made to surround the men, 
both here and abroad, with the kind of environment which 
a democracy owes to those who fight in its behalf. In 
this work the Commissions on Training Camp Activities 
have represented the government and the government's 
solicitude that the moral and spiritual resources of the 
nation should be mobilized behind the troops. The 



216 THE WORLD WAR 

country is to be congratulated upon the fine spirit with 
which organizations and groups of many kinds, some of 
them of national standing, have harnessed themselves to- 
gether under the leadership of the government's agency 
in a common ministry to the men of the army and navy. 

Afloat and ashore the organizations operat- 
ing under the supervision of the two commis- 
sions gave to the men of the American forces 
home care, suitable recreation, and constant 
protection. The club life of the army and 
navy, both in the training camps and after the 
men went into the service, was most capably 
directed by the Y. M. C. A., Knights of Co- 
lumbus, and the Jewish Welfare Association. 
Non-sectarianism was the rule in all of the huts 
and clubs conducted by these organizations. 
Catholic, Protestant and Jewish chaplains min- 
gled with workers of the Salvation Army, 
with professional prize-fighters who became 
athletic instructors, with actors and actresses 
who contributed their talents freely to the en- 
tertainment of soldiers and sailors. Moving- 
picture shows, boxing contests, continuation 
schools, canteens where women workers served 
American-made dishes — these were some of the 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 217j 

activities following the men. The Y. M. C. A. 
and Knights of Columbus bore the largest 
share of this work. More than $300,000,000 
was contributed by the people of America to 
the maintenance of these activities. 

The other organizations rounded out the 
work of the first two organizations and filled in 
with special attention to needs on which the 
others did not specialize. 

The larger organization, the Y. M. C. A., 
was chosen by the government to carry out a 
portion of the government program — the con- 
ducting of the canteens. 

The Knights of Columbus specialized in 
comforts less considered by other war relief 
organizations. 

Nothing gave greater relaxation to the fight- 
ing man, coming from the trenches, or the bat- 
tle line caked with mud and blood and weary 
with long hours, than a shower bath, and gen- 
erous facilities were provided close to the fight- 
ing front. 

Back of the lines in the rest billets and con- 
centration camps, provisions were less gener- 



218 THE WORLD WAR 

ous than at the front until the Knights of Co- 
lumhus took up the task of seeing that the men 
who were temporarily away from the active 
fighting had these facilities for bathing. It 
was but one of the many activities of the 
Knights of Columbus, but one of the most ap- 
preciated. 

One of the first requisitions made by Rev. 
John B. De Valles, one of the first chaplains 
sent over by the Knights of Columbus, was for 
a shower bath and he set it up in connection 
with his headquarters in a little French town 
and it was overworked from the first. From 
this spread the movement for establishing 
shower baths in club houses being opened be- 
hind the lines and in villages. 

There was no preaching in a Knights of Co- 
lumbus hall or club room, but there was clean 
moral environment and healthy recreation and 
amusement, for this was proven the thing to 
keep up the morale of fighting men. 

The Y. M. C. A. built 1,500 huts in Europe 
costing from $2,000 to $20,000 each, equipped 
with canteen, reading and writing and recre- 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 219 

ational facilities to soldiers. It operated 
twenty-eight different leave areas with hotels 
that had a total of 35,000 beds. In addition, 
in Paris, port towns, and several big centers in 
the war zone there were "Y" hotels for tran- 
sient soldiers where one could get a clean bed 
and a good meal at about half the price charged 
by French hotels. Over 3,000 movie and the- 
atrical shows a week were provided free, and 
300 "Y" athletic directors had charge of the 
sports in the American army, operating 836 
athletic fields. Enormous quantities of cook- 
ies and chocolate and cigarettes were sup- 
plied. 

A hundred of the best known educators from 
America directed educational work. The staff 
consisted of Professor Erskine of Columbia 
University, Professor Daly of Harvard, Pro- 
fessor Coleman of Chicago University, Pro- 
fessor Appleton of the University of Kansas 
and Frank Spaulding, superintendent of the 
Cleveland public schools. 

Seconding the work of the Y. M. C. A., its 
sister organization, the Y. W. C. A., extended 



220 THE WORLD WAR 

its activities from the training camps of Amer- 
ica to the battle-fields of Europe. 

At the close of its first year of America's 
participation in the war, the Y. W. C. A. had 
six established lines of work in France: 
Hostess Houses, clubs for French working 
women and business girls, clubs for nurses with 
the American army, clubs for women of the 
signal corps, clubs for British women 
(Waac's) working with the American army, 
and recreation work for all women employed 
in any way by the American Expeditionary 
Force. In one year its activities spread to 
twenty-five cities, and it had forty-three units. 

The Hostess Houses were at Paris and 
Tours. The Hotel Petrograd, on the Rue 
Caumartin, was leased in Paris and turned out 
to be one of the most interesting centers of 
American life in France. It was run on the 
most liberal lines, in a thoroughly democratic 
way. The meals were good and in the big 
dining-room men were admitted on the same 
footing as women. There were two of these 
Hostess Houses at Tours. 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 221 

For the girls of the signal corps twenty-two 
homes were opened and there were huts for 
the Waacs at Bourges and Tours. Y. W. C. 
A. secretaries were attached to twenty base 
hospital units and opened fourteen clubs for 
nurses. 

The most interesting and unique work of the 
Y. W. C. A. was that of its foyers for French 
working women and business girls. There 
were thirteen of these in Lyons, Rouen, 
Bourges, Tours, Ste. Etienne, Paris and Mont 
Lucon. 

The Salvation Army erected hotels at the 
various large training camps in America, and 
its workers made American doughnuts for the 
soldiers close to the battle-lines in France. 
The work done by the men and women of the 
Salvation Army aided materially in bringing 
the heart of America into France. 

The Jewish Welfare Association not only 
performed notable service in following the men 
from training camps into actual service, but it 
also planned and executed a great reconstruc- 
tion program under the direction of Felix M. 



222 THE WORLD WAR 

Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution 
Committee. 

The American Library Association solved 
the grave problem of providing the soldiers 
and sailors with suitable reading matter. 
Each of the cantonments had its special library 
building in charge of a trained librarian, and 
interesting literature followed the men into 
the field through the services of this organiza- 
tion. 

Some idea of the work of these various or- 
ganizations is gained by reading the following 
order received by Raymond B. Fosdick at his 
headquarters in Washington after the steam- 
ship Kansas carrying supplies for the various 
huts at American field quarters, was sunk: 

Send 20 tons plain soap, 20 tons condensed milk, 10 
tons chocolate, 5 Jons cocoa, 2 tons tea, 5 tons coffee, 5 
tons vanilla wafers, 50 tons sugar, 20 tons flour, 2 tons 
fruit essences, 2 tons lemonade powder, 120,000 Testa- 
ments, 120,000 hymn-books, tons of magazines and other 
literature, 30 tons writing-paper and envelopes, 50,000 
folding chairs, 500 camp cots, 2,000 blankets, 20 type- 
writers, 60 tents, 75 moving-picture machines, 200 
phonographs, 5,000 records, 1 ton ink blotters, $75,000 
worth athletic goods, 30 automobiles and trucks. 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 223 

The order was filled at once. 

Besides the associations above enumerated, 
other volunteer organizations contributed to 
the health and happiness of American soldiers 
and sailors. The Emergency Aid of Pennsyl- 
vania established two clubs, one in Paris, the 
other in Tours, both of which performed nota- 
ble services in feeding and restoring the spirits 
of American soldiers and sailors. The club in 
Paris was under the direction of the Rev. Fred- 
erick W. Beekman and that at Tours was di- 
rected by Amos Tuck French. Mrs. Barclay 
Warburton of Philadelphia was designated by 
Governor Brumbaugh as Commissioner-Gen- 
eral of Overseas Work for the Emergency Aid. 
Other states had similar organizations looking 
after the comfort of the men. 

But it was upon the professional doctors, 
nurses and sanitarians that the bulk of the task 
devolved. This task included the prevention 
as well as the cure of maladies menacing the 
American forces. It reached out into years 
after the war into the problems of re-education 
and re-habilitation of the shell-shocked and the 



224 THE WORLD WAR 

wounded. Major-General William C. Gor- 
gas, former Surgeon General of the Army, 
stated this concept when he said : 

"The whole conception of governmental and 
national responsibility for caring for the 
wounded has undergone radical change during 
the months of study given the subject by ex- 
perts serving with the Medical Officers' Re- 
serve Corps and others consulting with them. 
Instead of the old idea that responsibility 
ended with the return of the soldier to private 
life with his wounds healed and such pension as 
he might be given, it is now considered that it is 
the duty of the government to equip and re- 
educate the wounded man, after healing his 
wounds, and to return him to civil life ready 
to be as useful to himself and his country as 
possible. ,, 

To carry out this idea reconstruction hospi- 
tals were established in large centers of popu- 
lation. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Washington, Buffalo, Cincinnati, 
Chicago, St. Paul, Seattle, San Francisco, Los 
Angeles, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 225 

Memphis, Richmond, Atlanta and New Or- 
leans were sites of these institutions. Each 
was planned as a 500-bed hospital but with pro- 
vision for enlargement to 1,000 beds if needed. 

These hospitals were not the last step in the 
return of the wounded soldiers to civil life. 
When the soldiers were able to take up indus- 
trial training, further provision was ready. 

Arrangements were made by the Depart- 
ment of Military Orthopedics to care for sol- 
diers, so far as orthopedics (the prevention of 
deformity) was concerned, continuously until 
they were returned to civil life. Orthopedic 
surgeons were attached to the medical force 
near the firing line and to the different hospi- 
tals back to the base orthopedic hospital which 
was established within one hundred miles of the 
firing line. In this hospital, in addition to 
orthopedic surgical care, there was equipment 
for surgical reconstruction work and "curative 
workshops" in which men acquired ability to 
use injured members while doing work inter- 
esting and useful in itself. This method sup- 
planted the old and tiresome one of prescribing 

6—15 



226 THE WORLD WAR 

a set of motions for a man to go through with 
no other purpose than to re-acquire use of his 
injured part. 

Instructors and examiners for all the troops 
were furnished by the Department of Military- 
Orthopedic Surgery. A number of older and 
more experienced surgeons acted as instructors 
and supervisors for each of the groups into 
which the army was divided. 

A peculiar condition arising from the use of 
heavy artillery in the war was that called 
"shell-shock." 

The most pathetic wrecks of war were sol- 
diers suffering from shattered nerves. Paris 
had many of them. They appeared to be nor- 
mal. But they were human wrecks. 

Shell-shock or the aftermath of illness from 
wounds left them in weakened health, subject 
to violent heart attacks. Most of them lacked 
energy and perseverance. They became awk- 
ward, like big children. If employment was 
found for them — for many had large families 
to support — they quickly lost their jobs 
through apathy or collapse. 



HEALTH OF THE FORCES 227 

A society in Paris did everything possible to 
relieve the sufferings of these victims of the 
war. It operated with the authorization of 
the French Government under the name 
"L'Assistance aux Blesses Nerveux de la 
Guerre." 

American hospitals after the war contained 
many of these cases. Some of the victims be- 
came incurably insane. 

Besides the noble work done by the great 
army of American physicians, surgeons and 
nurses, in caring for soldiers and sailors, a serv- 
ice of scarcely less magnitude was rendered to 
the civilian populations of France, Belgium 
and Italy. Tuberculosis in France was a real 
plague, taking a toll of 80,000 lives every year. 
American physicians and nurses preached the 
doctrine of fresh air, care of the teeth and 
proper food for children. Almost immedi- 
ately this campaign of sanitation had its ef- 
fect in a decreasing death-rate from tuber- 
culosis. 

European nations generally were benefited 
by the stay of the American army overseas. 



228 THE WORLD WAR 

The straightforward manner in which the so- 
cial evil was attacked had direct benefits. The 
important detail of dental care also received 
an interest through the advent of the American 
soldier. The London Daily Mail made this 
comment on that question: 

"One thing about the American soldiers and 
sailors must strike English people when they 
see these gallant fighters, and that is the sound- 
ness and general whiteness of their teeth. 
From childhood the 'Yank' is taught to take 
care of his teeth. He has 'tooth drill' thrice 
daily and visits his dentist at fixed periods, say, 
every three or four months. If by chance a 
tooth does decay, the rot is at once arrested by 
gold or platinum filling. American dentists 
never extract a tooth. No matter how badly 
decayed it may be, they save the molar by 
crowning it with gold. 

"The United States soldiers have set us a 
splendid example in this matter. They fairly 
shame the ordinary 'Tommy' by the brilliance 
of their molars." 



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